False alarms

Like many things, there are smoke alarms and THEN there are smoke alarms.

They range in price from $6 to $200+ but are ultimately all designed to do the same thing, give the occupants the earliest possible warning when a fire situation occurs. Because the quality varies so vastly, many people experience smoke alarms that “False alarm” or react when the kettle boils etc.

The 4 most important things when it comes to preventing these types of ‘false alarms’ or ‘unnecessary alarms’ are:

The correct type of smoke alarms (Ionisation vs Photoelectric)
The best quality of smoke alarms (lowest failure rates)
The correct location of smoke alarms (avoid areas with steam, dust etc)
Regular maintenance of smoke alarms (follow manufacturer’s instructions)

This is the reason why SATS only use the best quality smoke alarms (lowest failure rates) and make sure all properties we service have the correct amount of alarms in the correct locations and maintained as per manufacturer’s instructions.

Whenever an alarm does sound for any reason you should always treat the event as an emergency situation and quickly establish if there is indeed a fire incident occurring. Once you have assessed the risk and establish that a ‘false alarm has occurred’ then you can go about trying to hush the alarm.

Steps to Hush a ‘false alarm’:

Assess the risk
Identify the alarm that is sounding
Press the hush button on the sounding alarm.
The alarm will reset in 5-10 minutes depending on the model. If beeping or alarming persists past this point contact your agency or call SATS on 1300 55 21 99. For interconnected smoke alarms (if one alarm goes off all alarms will go off), as a general guide, the alarm that triggered the system to go off will be the alarm that is required to be hushed. This alarm can be located by a flashing red LED light which is flashing more frequently than other alarms in the property.
If you can identify the cause of the ‘false alarm’ (toast left in the toaster, door open to the bathroom when shower occurring etc) take actions to prevent its re-occurrence.
If a problem persists after the hushing of smoke alarms in the property please contact SATS or your agency.

Many alarms have a similar hush function and can be reset in a similar way but depending on the make and model, they may slightly differ in their function and behaviour after a ‘false alarm’.

Below is a list of some common alarms in the market that you can use to self troubleshoot.

24/7 Fire Protection

Model FP301

BRK/First Alert

Model 0827

Model 7010B

Brooks

Model EIB3024 / 3016 / 3014

Model EIB146RC

Model EIB650iC

Model EIB605C

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AQvjqhnHTE