UK Home Insurance Fire cover

Each year, the fire brigade is called out to over 600,000 fires, resulting in more than 800 deaths and over 17,000 injuries. Over 60,000 of these fires happen in the home, and these account for the deaths of 500 people and causing injuries to over 11,000 people. If people had had an early warning, they would have got out in time. If you buy and fit a smoke alarm, you could well save your home, not to mention the lives of you and your family.

Smoke alarms are devices that incorporate within a means of detecting a fire - which is the smoke detector, and a way of giving a loud warning - the smoke alarm. They are usually about the size of a hand, and are normally fitted around the house on the ceilings. They should be able to detect the presence of a fire in their earlier stages and should sound the alarm when they do detect it. The alarm could give you that time to stop the fire, or at least you should get those extra few minutes in which your family and you can escape safely.

There are two types of smoke alarm on the market. One is the Optical alarm, also known as a photo electronic alarm, and the other is the Ionisation alarm.

The optical alarm is more expensive, but makes up for that by being a lot more effective when detecting the larger particles of smoke that are produced by slow-burning fires. These give off larger volumes of smoke before actual flaming occurs, which gives you more chance to stop the fire. This could be when foam-filled upholstery is smouldering, or PVC wiring is overheated. Optical alarms are less sensitive to free burning fires.

With Ionisation alarms, which are a lot cheaper, you get an alarm that is more sensitive to those small particles of smoke produced by free burning and flaming fires, like those caused by chip pans. Before the smoke gets too thick, they will detect this type of fire. However, Ionisation alarms are less sensitive to slow burning fires or smouldering fires.

Both types look similar and both can be powered by a battery or mains electricity, or maybe a combination of both. You can actually interconnect the alarms all over the property, so that if smoke is detected in one point, it will raise the alarms at all the others. Some can be bought with emergency lights, and some give you a silence button, which you can press if you are cooking something that you know will smoke, during which a smoke alarm will be a nuisance.

Think about the type of fire risks you have in your home before you decide which type of fire alarm to get.

 

 

 

 

© AskFinancially.com 2008

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