Recommended Locations For Alarms - Kidde K10SCO User Manual

7. Recommended Locations for Alarms

7.1 ReCoMMeNded loCAtIoNs foR sMoke AlARMs
Note: According to BS 5839-6, for optimal fire protection: "The greatest benefit to life safety is given by a
full-coverage system. Such a system will give the earliest practicable warning of fire to occupants,
wherever ignition occurs."
Note: This combination model can satisfy a location requirement for a smoke alarm as well as for a CO
alarm, thus offering space and cost savings. See Figure 7-B for combination location options.
• Locate the first alarm in the immediate area of the bedrooms. Try to monitor the escape routes and
rooms opening into escape routes as the bedrooms are usually farthest from the exit.
• If more than one sleeping area exists, locate additional alarms near each sleeping area. No bedroom
door should be further than 3 m from the nearest alarm.
• Locate additional alarms between every bedroom and every other room in the dwelling (for example,
an office, library, or lounge), other than a toilet, bathroom, or shower room.
• Locate additional alarms to monitor any stairway as stairways act like chimneys for smoke and heat.
• Locate at least one alarm on every floor level, including finished lofts. Locate an alarm between each
staircase and every room, other than a toilet, bathroom or shower room.
• Locate an alarm in every bedroom.
• Locate an alarm in every room where electrical appliances are operated (i.e. portable heaters or humid-
ifiers).
• Locate an alarm in every room where someone sleeps with the door closed. The closed door may
prevent an alarm not located in that room from waking the sleeper.
• Locate one alarm in each principal habitable room.
• If a habitable room is an inner room with no doors or windows through which escape is possible, locate
one alarm in the room used to access that inner room.
• In hallways, corridors, or rooms exceeding 7.5 m in length, no point within the hallway, corridor, or room
should exceed 7.5 m from the nearest alarm.
• Smoke, heat, and combustion products rise to the ceiling and spread horizontally. Mounting the
smoke alarm on the ceiling in the center of the room places it closest to all points in the room. Ceiling
mounting is preferred in ordinary residential construction.
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