This is part of a series of guidance about safety and security provided for students.
Fire Safety
Statistics show that young people living in shared accommodation are more likely to have a house fire than other segments of society; here we’ve gathered some details on how you can prevent yourself suffering from a fire. If you’re looking for more information, the official "Fire Kills" site has plenty of advice on keeping yourself safe.
Fire Detection Systems
Smoke or heat alarms are one of the simplest steps to preventing a serious fire. (Heat alarms are usually used in kitchen locations to avoid false alarms while cooking, but basically serve the same purpose as smoke alarms elsewhere in the house).
If your house has no smoke / heat alarms at all, get some. We recommend at least one per floor, to be positioned in central locations like hallways and landings; most need to be placed in specific positions to ensure they’re effective (e.g. on a horizontal ceiling, rather than a vertical wall, or at least a certain distance from a wall) so read the instructions that come with it when you are installing it.
Simple battery powered smoke alarms can be bought for very little money, and your landlord may be willing to install them; if not, it’s well worth spending the money yourself.
Better Smoke Alarms
A step up from battery-powered alarms are mains-powered ones, which usually come as an interlinked system and include a backup battery. These are better because they should still work even if you forget to change the battery; the interlinking also means that an alarm going off anywhere in the house will trigger all the other alarms to go off too, which is a real safety feature.
These alarms are more expensive than the battery ones and require professional installation by an electrician, so it’s not something you will want to do yourself. However, make it something to look out for when you are choosing the house, or see if you can persuade your landlord to add them later.
Keeping Safe
Whatever type of alarms you have you should test them regularly – most manufacturers recommend weekly. There should be a ‘TEST’ button, or for a more thorough test you could blow out a candle near the alarm and see if the smoke produced triggers the alarm (but always be careful when using candles). Detectors can become blocked with dust, making them less effective, so many manufacturers recommend giving them a gentle vacuum clean once a month or so. Be careful when doing this to avoid damaging the alarm, and follow the manufacturer’s instructions if possible.
Other Safety Equipment
There are a few other things to look out for when choosing a house. The most visible will be fire extinguishers and fire blankets. We recommend that every kitchen should have one of each; the fire extinguisher should normally be of the Dry Powder type (also known as ABC Powder) and of at least 2kg size. Fire extinguishers should also be serviced annually to ensure they are still up to scratch.
Another important safety feature, and one that unfortunately tenants often undermine, is door closing mechanisms. A decent internal door can hold a fire back for up to half an hour – if the door is closed. If you have them, don’t prop the doors open or disable the mechanism.
Furniture
Furniture made before 1988 has potential to be very dangerous in the event of a fire – it can be set alight very easily and when it burns it will let off toxic fumes. More recent furniture will have a permanent tag indicating that it complies with the 1988 fire regulations.
It is illegal to provide any furniture that doesn’t comply with the regulations, and that includes providing it as part of the furniture in rented accommodation. If any of the furniture supplied with your accommodation doesn’t display a tag ask the landlord to replace it. Even if the furniture looks quite new, there could be a problem if there’s no tag – perhaps it was imported from a country without the same regulations, so look for the tag rather than trying to guess the age of the furniture.
Accreditation
As there is no legal requirement for landlords to provide smoke alarms (let alone mains-powered interlinked ones), fire extinguishers, fire blankets or door closing mechanisms on most properties, the Accreditation Scheme fills this gap. All of these are requirements of the Scheme, so picking an Accredited house is a good way of checking that your landlord is prepared to meet decent standards of safety.
Not every accredited property is inspected every year, so it’s possible for things like fire blankets to get lost between tenancies, or the previous lot of tenants could have disabled the door closers, so you should still check it out for yourself, but accreditation does show that the landlord is willing to get the property up to standard, and he should keep it up to standard between inspections too.
Summary
- Normal smoke / heat alarms are good; mains-powered interlinked ones are better.
- Test alarms regularly, and keep them free from dust.
- Other valuable safety features include fire extinguishers, fire blankets and door closing mechanisms.
- Furniture should meet fire safety regulations, and display a tag to prove it.
- The Accreditation Scheme has fire safety requirements above the legal minimum, so can help you to find a good safe property.
- Further information is available on the official "Fire Kills" site.
Pages in this Guide
The following pages have a lot of information about safety, which might seem a lot to take in. If you don’t want to have to check all these things, Accreditation can be considered a ‘short-cut’, since most of our safety advice is reflected in the requirements of the Accreditation Scheme. It’s one of the reasons we strongly recommend you to rent an Accredited house.
This information is provided for general guidance only. Safety and security are important issues, and if you have any concerns you should speak to an expert.
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