Is it Regulation to have a Heat Alarm in the Kitchen ?

[James81]

Having a new kitchen fitted and the workmen
have said we need to have a heat alarm in the
kitchen as well as the smoke alarm in the hall.

The hall smoke alarm is 2 metres away from the
kitchen, it is a 1920s small 1 bedroom flat and has
never had a heat alarm in the kitchen only the
1 alarm in the hall.

I was wondering if it is necessary/ part of the
regulations?

 

[tazz]

Would depend on weather flat is owned/rented......but for your own safety it is a good idea to fit at heat

 

[Octopus]

Anyone trying to avoid having a decent smoke and heat alarm system installed is nuts Imho

 

[Badged01]

If you are just fitting a new kitchen in your own house then I dont know of anything that says you have to have a heat/smoke alarm fitted -- there or anywhere in the house!

Although as my learned colleagues above have stated, its a good safety feature worth having fitted if you can.

 

[Spoon]

Is there a problem with having a heat alarm in your kitchen? How much are they charging to fit this?
You could always ask the workmen to show you the reg where it states a heat alarm is required.

 

[James81]

Hi,

Thank you for all your replies.

Its not so much the price Spoon, (I believe it is included with the quote
given), its more about this being a very small kitchen and the heat
alarm will be almost above the oven so unsure if this will cause false
alarms. Also with the optical smoke alarm being so close by I cannot see a
benefit of the heat alarm.

 

[Spoon]

I've read somewhere that its best to have both alarms... I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.
I understand where you are coming from and if you have concerns that you will get lots of false alarms when cooking then maybe someone here can ease them. If you don't want them in your kitchen then as I said earlier, just ask them to show you the reg where it states you do need a heat alarm in the kitchen.

 

[telectrix]

heat alarm will not activate during normal operation of cooker and hob. it should do if you set your chip pan on fire. not 100% sure , but think it needs about 85deg.C at the detector to activate, or a rapid rise in temperature.

 

[tazz]

If it is your home, then the choice is totally yours.....but from a safety point of view, it is worth installing. Unless you are planing on having flaming BQ`s in the kitchen, the heat detector will be fine with normal cooking with a room temperature below 60c.

 

[James81]

Thank you guys, I have decided to go ahead and
have a heat alarm installed, but looking at the
instructions it mentions not to put within 1m
of wiring from a light dimmer switch because
of possible interference.

Has anyone had experience with this
interference?
In my case they would have to install
the heat alarm 300mm from the light
fitting due to lack of space.

 

[telectrix]

300mm from the light fitting is OK.but why a dimmer in a kitchen? surely you want as good a light as you can in order to see when you cut your finger slicing the cucumber for the sarnies.