Recommended Smoke Alarms

[bryanajones]

What are the best (safest?) type of mains powered fire / smoke alarms to use in a family home and can anyone recommend some that I can link into comfort?

I\'d need around 4 to cover every floor so could use some tips on how to wire them up (how do they wire to the mains? how do they link with each other? how do they link to Comfort? How does Comfort interface with them?)

Thanks

Bryan

[slychiu]

I am more familiar with 12V smoke/heat detectors which are normally used with burglar alarms. These can be found in most alarm distributors catalogs
The voltage for these are supplied by Comfort and hence is battery backed up, in case of power failure, which I guess would not be the case for Mains powered detectors
The relay contacts of the smoke detectors are connected to any Comfort input

[muddymickey]

Bryan

This is something I\'ve been interested in too.

I\'m a selfbuilder, and (as required by our building regulations) we had to have mains-powered, interlinked smoke alarms with battery backup.

I have 4 alarms - a heat detector in the kitchen (to avoid nuisance alarms when the toast gets slightly burnt), and 3 smoke detectors in the hallways.
The heat alarm is a Kidde Fyrnetics device, like this one:
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/KD3...9HILL.html
..and the smoke alarms are from the same series.
There is a datasheet here:
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Technical/Da...223-10.pdf

I think the requirement is that they are either powered from their own circuit in the consumer unit, or from a regularly-used lighting circuit (you\'d need to check the actual requirement to be sure - you may find the latest wiring regs have changed to specify a separate circuit only).
Ours have their own circuit.
I have 2core+earth cable running from the consumer unit to the first alarm, and then the others are daisy-chained from that using 3core+earth cable, the third core being used for the interconnect.

I have been wondering how I might hook these into Comfort.
I guess when the alarms go off, there is a voltage present on the interconnect wire, that could be interfaced to a Comfort input.
But I don\'t know any details of voltage level.
Also, I\'m not sure there is a interconnect voltage standard that different manufacturers use.

By the way, they ain\'t half noisy when they all sound together !!

[muddymickey]

Ha, just been googling round after writing that post, and look what I find:

http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/KDSMK23R.html

A Kidde mounting pattress that includes a relay for operating third-party devices !

EDIT: And here\'s the manual:
http://www.kiddesafetyeurope.co.uk/utcfs...23%20R.pdf
Provides either n/o or n/c closed contacts, so should be a very simple job to interface to Comfort !!

[slychiu]

I suggest use the N/C contacts with double EOL so it can be monitored for open or short circuit

[juwi_uk]

Hi I\'ve installed AICO mains fire alarms with my Comfort System.

They have an optional relay base which I used to connect to a Comfort zone.

See: http://www.aico.co.uk/

Regards

Julian

 

 

[bryanajones]

so I\'d be right in thinking that if theyre all interlinked then only one needs a base and that one base would connect to comfort?

muddymickey, so you have the mains smoke alarms but dont have them linked to comfort yet?

[juwi_uk]

Bryan,

Not sure if your question is aimed at my posting about the AICO alarms but if so you only need 1.   In my setup I\'ve actually used 2;  one for upstairs and 1 for downstairs though that was really because I ordered 2 thinking the same as you that I might need...only to find 1 would have been fine.  Hey Ho,  got a bit of redundancy in my solution I suppose

Julian

[bryanajones]

Yes I was asking about the AICO, but then I guess it applies to all the others too.

Thanks for the reply!

[bryanajones]

I\'m looking at the AICO relay base and it reads: Volt-free relay contacts, rated at 240V 5A. Is this suitable for comfort?

Julian which AICO part numbers did you order (alarms and relays etc)?

Thanks

Bryan