Heat and smoke alarms

[Susanna]

I charge and store my car in my (attached) garage. I have always garaged my cars, but never really thought too much about the fire risk. Having done a bit of research, I ordered a heat alarm for the garage, together with a linked WiFi smoke alarm, which is indoors. If either alarm detects a problem, they both activate.

I also ordered a remote control, which can be used to test the alarms and silence them, which should save me from going up a step ladder in the garage for monthly testing. Both alarms have 10 year batteries, although the WiFi enabling part of the smoke alarm also has 2 x AA batteries, which will obviously require replacing yearly.

I hope this gives me some peace of mind.

Edited to add - if either of the alarms activates, a message is sent to my mobile from the app.

 

[siteguru]

All this concern ... yet any of your previous ICE cars was statistically more likely to go on fire than your ZS EV.

 

[Susanna]

@siteguru - I agree, but I just hadn’t considered the fire risk at all. I should have done this years ago!! I expect we all have smoke alarms indoors, but perhaps there are other people who also hadn’t thought about their garages, especially if it’s attached. My son’s double garage has 2 bedrooms above it. He accidentally left a soldering iron plugged in, in the garage, which started to burn his work bench. There were plenty of things stored in the garage, which could have caught fire, including my daughter in law’s Audi. A smoke alarm activated in the utility room behind the garage, which was very lucky.

That was the reason for my post!

 

[Everest]

Having done a bit of research, I ordered a heat alarm for the garage, together with a linked WiFi smoke alarm, which is indoors. If either alarm detects a problem, they both activate.

sounds good idea - we can never be too safe.

All this concern ... yet any of your previous ICE cars was statistically more likely to go on fire than your ZS EV.

Do we know for sure that statistically an EV charging is less of a fire risk than an ICE parked and switched off?

, but I just hadn’t considered the fire risk at all. I should have done this years ago!! I expect we all have smoke alarms indoors, but perhaps there are other people who also hadn’t thought about their garages, especially if it’s attached

definitely.

 

[Archev]

My concrete two car garage is about three metres from the house. There has never been a car in it - only an old motorcycle, my camping gear and the remnants of my plumbing / electrical stores which is what the building was built for. Currently a third of the roof is a tarpaulin until the insurers get back to me. I’ve always had a fire alarm in the garage but I might fit a linked unit as fitted in the house to comply with the new regs.

 

[Susanna]

@Archev - I understand there are strict regulations in Scotland. We should have the same in other parts of the UK.

 

[dsimpkins]

On a related note, I have a smoke alarm fitted above my 3D printer despite it having thermal overload protection built in. A lot of early 3D printers caused fires for their owners, so although the technology has improved, it provides extra piece of mind. As does the ability to monitor and control the prints remotely via a Raspberry Pi micro computer and webcam.

 

[Archev]

@Archev - I understand there are strict regulations in Scotland. We should have the same in other parts of the UK.

Aye the household smoke and heat alarms have to be interlinked. This was obviously more important when my wife was using oxygen and we had cylinders of it plus the oxygen machine in the house. Plus we had a visit from the local fire brigade to check things over for compliance.

 

[Ian Key]

In the year 2019 to 2020 there were:
668 tumble dryer fires
624 washing machine fires

In the year 2022 to 2023 there were:
239 EV fires out of over 100,000 car fires in total.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions

 

[Archev]

In the year 2019 to 2020 there were:
668 tumble dryer fires
624 washing machine fires

In the year 2022 to 2023 there were:
239 EV fires out of over 100,000 car fires in total.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions

I’ve never had a tumble drier

 

[Shrink Proof]

I’ve never had a tumble drier

They seem to be designed for burning large numbers of fivers with dry clothing as a rather incidental by-product.

 

[Everest]

In the year 2019 to 2020 there were:
668 tumble dryer fires
624 washing machine fires

In the year 2022 to 2023 there were:
239 EV fires out of over 100,000 car fires in total.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions

And in 2017 one fridge-freezer fire that sadly wiped out a whole block of flats

My conclusion is that unavoidable fires will happen however careful we are and how well designed the products that trigger them are. So having working fire alarms and, where appropriate, automatic extinguishers is a sensible precaution to mitigate any damage and injury, as @Susanna has just done.

They seem to be designed for burning large numbers of fivers with dry clothing as a rather incidental by-product.

Not if you have a modern heat-pump based tumbler Free to use with solar too!

 

[Susanna]

I do have a heat pump one, but I don’t need to use it very often. However, not everyone has access to a garden for outdoor drying, and even if they do, the weather doesn’t always play ball.
Having to dry clothing and bed linen in flats is massively contributing to mould, exacerbated by the price of electricity making the use of tumble drying unaffordable for many.

@Everest - thank you! It seemed like some people thought I was overreacting to a perceived danger, when I was simply trying to keep myself and my home safer.

 

[Rolfe]

It's a very reasonable precaution. I never gave it a thought when I was parking a car full of petrol in an attached garage. Even though the risk with an EV is less, it's always good to be aware.

 

[Everest]

Why sometimes do my (and other) posts get merged together, like has happened above to @Susanna's and my posts?

I can understand merging of posts that are making the same point, but what has happened above is that @Susanna made two post, one in reply about heat pumps and one in reply to me about fire alarms. I had then responded, in different ways, to them (with and agree and a love reaction, IIRC), but merged together it only gets the one reaction.

Similarly, my two posts (one about fire alarms and one about heat-pump tumble driers) have been merged. So @Archev's 'agree' response to my posting about fire alarms now suggests he agrees with my posting about heat-pump tumblers - when he's a) already said he never had a tumbler and b) may actually hate them

 

[Susanna]

@Everest - I actually thought it was something I had done to cause the merger! But I agree, it could cause misinterpretation.

 

[Rolfe]

This is a mystery to me. I'm told the facility to merge two consecutive posts from one member automatically isn't activated in this forum. There is a feature that allows moderators to do it manually. I don't know if anyone did that in this case, although I certainly didn't.

 

[Gadget Geek]

On the subject of smoke alarms, how many of you with gas boilers have a carbon monoxide detector?

(Sorry for a slight detour off the topic but I was just curious as CO poisoning is a serious issue).

 

[Susanna]

My boiler is in my garage, and I have a (mostly unused) gas fire in my sitting room. Both appliances have a CO monitor in close proximity. I don’t have a gas cooker.

 

[Everest]

On the subject of smoke alarms, how many of you with gas boilers have a carbon monoxide detector?

Of course In fact I have two in the house.