When a smoke or fire alarm sounds it is to alert people to leave the building as quickly as possible as there is a fire in the building. However, if the business is prone to false smoke detector alarms, then it’s like the boy who cried wolf. People may think a real alarm is another false smoke detector alarm and carry-on working, ignoring the alarm.
There have been times when people have died because when there was a real alarm, they didn’t react. While false smoke detector alarms can happen from time to time, repeated false fire alarms can be prevented. That’s what we talk about in this blog post.
- Toasters in The Kitchen
Toasters can emit a lot of smoke when they are toasting bread. If the smoke alarm is too close to the toaster this can result in a false smoke alarm being triggered. If this happens every lunch break and there happened to be a real fire at around this time, it is likely the alarm could be ignored. To reduce false alarms triggering in this way, make sure your toaster is placed away from the smoke alarm.
- Faulty Smoke Alarm
Smoke detectors and fire alarms are electrical items. As with all electrical items, they may become faulty overtime. Whenever the alarm sounds check why it is sounding. Ensure it was caused by a false alarm before resetting it. A smoke detector alarm that triggers for no reason should be immediately replaced. While it might trigger for no reason, it may not trigger if there was a real fire. This is not a risk you should run, so make sure you replace all faulty smoke alarms.
- The Location of Your Smoke Detector
If you have noticed false smoke detector alarms in your business, it may just be that they are placed in the wrong locations. Simply moving them to a better location could resolve the false alarms. However, you must speak to fire safety professionals before moving the alarms. It may also be a good idea to change from smoke detectors to heat detectors. Speak to our team of fire safety professionals and they can recommend the best solution for you and your business.
- Dust and Debris
If your business is not regularly cleaned, dust can pile up. As this is cleaned away the dust can float up and get into the smoke detector. The false smoke detector alarm will be triggered as the sensor will see the dust particles and recognise these as smoke particles. The risk of a false alarm triggering in this way can be reduced by using a vacuum cleaner or cleaning more frequently. Both of these will help reduce the dust particles in the air.
If you have noticed false smoke detector alarms becoming more frequent in your business, call our fire safety team. They will happily check, maintain, repair or replace your fire alarms for you.
