Last year, the New Zealand Fire Service attended over 3,700 house fires. In over 80% of those fires, smoke alarms were either not installed or not working. Most fire fatalities occur in homes, mainly while people are sleeping when they can’t smell smoke. Smoke alarms are the best possible defence you and your family have from dying in a fire.
Where should I put smoke alarms?
Smoke rises and moves along the ceiling. It will move up stairwells and vertical openings. When it can't rise anymore it will build up, working its way down again. It's because of this that it's important to place smoke alarms on the ceiling to get the earliest warning. If you must position it on the wall put it 100mm away from the ceiling to avoid dead air pockets.
For optimum smoke detection, long life photoelectric smoke alarms should be installed in every bedroom, living area and hallway in the house - on every level. However, this is not always practical. That's why we suggest, at an absolute minimum, that a long life photoelectric smoke alarm should be installed in the hallway closest to the bedrooms. This should be supplemented with other alarms as soon as circumstances permit.
Where not to put them.
Don't install smoke alarms in the kitchen, garage or bathrooms unless they are specially designed smoke alarms for those areas. Heat detectors are available for the kitchen.
What sort of smoke alarm should I install?
The New Zealand Fire Service recommends you install long-life photoelectric type smoke alarms in your home. They may be a bit more expensive, but the benefits are significant:
• they provide a minimum of 10 years smoke detection
• they remove the frustration of fixing the 'flat battery beep' at inconvenient times
• the cost of replacement batteries for standard alarms means the long-life one effectively pays for itself over its lifetime
• elderly don't have to scale ladders to replace batteries annually
But, at a minimum, you should install one standard photoelectric alarm in the hallway closest to the bedrooms.