It is your responsibility to make sure you have a working
smoke alarm installed. Smoke alarms save lives.
In this article, we’d like to remind you all about your
obligations when it comes to smoke alarms.
By law, all homes and units in Queensland must be fitted
with smoke alarms.
Without them in your home, your
risk of death from a house fire is up to 3 times higher.
In Queensland, about
three-quarters of all home fire deaths happen in homes without smoke alarms —
nearly half of all house fire deaths occur when people are sleeping.
Your obligations:
Homes built before 1 July 1997 must have at least one 9-volt battery-operated smoke alarm
Homes built or significantly renovated after 1 July 1997 must have a 240-volt (hard-wired) smoke alarm.
Buildings submitted for approval from 1st May 2014 must have hard-wired and interconnected smoke alarms.
Queensland Fire and Emergency Services recommends all homes
are fitted with photoelectric smoke alarms (not ionisation types).
Photoelectric smoke alarms are generally more effective than
ionisation types because they 'see' the smoke by detecting visible particles of
combustion. For this reason they are good at detecting smouldering fires and
dense smoke, and are not as prone to false alarms (from cooking etc.).
There are two kinds of photoelectric smoke alarms:
- 240-volt smoke alarms (also called 'hard-wired smoke alarms'). These are connected to the house electrical system and have a battery back-up power supply
- 9-volt smoke alarms (also called 'battery-operated smoke alarms') are stand-alone battery operated alarms.
When choosing a smoke alarm, make sure it:
complies with the Australian Standard AS 3786-1993
has the Standards Australia Mark or is Scientific Services
Laboratory (SSL) certified.
By law, a smoke alarm must be installed on or near the
ceiling in a hallway or area close to bedrooms and the rest of the house (in a
multi-storey house, a smoke alarm must be installed on each level).
Anyone who
sleeps with their door closed should have a smoke alarm installed in their
bedroom.
