Well before I obtained the fire alarm standards and studied them, and built much more experience, I had a very enlightening experience as an electrician. I relate my epiphany experience simply to illustrate the difference between a trained professional and an un-trained one.

Over two decades ago, as an electrician not very interested in fire alarms at the time, my customer asked me to install some smoke alarms. So I put one on the landing of the house, and others elsewhere where I thought fires might start. Then the council building inspector came to the site, a very kind and well educated man, who very kindly reprimanded me at length for not putting a smoke detector at the bottom of the stairs.

I explained that there was no possible source of ignition of a fire at the bottom of the stairs as there were no electrical sockets. It was a tiny sqaure hallway between the stairs and the front door and the lounge door, and measured around 900mm square. Even if a fire started, any smoke would quickly rise to the landing and trigger the detector there. And there was a detector in the adjacent lounge, where any fire might start. 

However, he told me that I had omitted the smoke detector in THE MOST IMPORTANT part of the building, in fact if I only put one smoke detector in the building, it must be there at the bottom of the stairs. I was perplexed, smoke wouldn't even stay there, it would just rise up the stairs, and no fire could start there, and it was a tiny area.

He explained that smoke detectors are not there to detect fire. Humans can tell if there's a fire! Smoke detectors, along with all fire alarm systems designed to protect human life, are there for one main purpose: to tell you in enough time, if your emergency exit route is in danger.  In other words, people die in fires because they couldn't get out in time. So a fire alarm systems' job is to hurry you along, to leave the building, before it's too late, and you can't get out due to the smoke.

Imagine a fire at the bottom of the stairs. How will you get out? People often do not realise that it only takes five breaths of smoke to enter paralysis. So you really, really, need the smoke detector to wake you up in enough time to make it out of the building. Life depends on that.

So the inspector refused to sign-off the refurbishment of the house until I had installed a smoke detector at that location, and rightly so. And from this I started my learning curve of study, attending training, conversing with others, and building trust and experience in the fire safety world. 

I regularly see installed fire alarm systems, and sometimes go to fire scenes to repair the building afterwards. I also regularly see fire alarm systems costing many thousands, where the most important detectors have been omitted. I have also seen fraudulent certificates showing such systems have detectors, where they actually don't, with someone just ticking boxes and clicking "send" and saying the fire alarm has been serviced.

As this is an isolated example just to make a point, please see the next section for further details on fire alarm detectors and where they should be sited.

Alternatively, please click the button to contact me me for professional help. I offer free initial consultations where we can discuss the scope of works.