UKH

 Other thread on this has been archived so for anyone interested, Spark just been to do the job.

3 smoke and 1 heat detector total cost £145.

About 30 minutes work, no mess, complete with certificate thing/ warranty.

He reckons it will get to be more expensive as the cost of alarms is increasing. I can imagine it'll soon be insurance requirement as well, so we got in quick.

That sounds like a better price than I've seen anywhere else at the moment, would you mind messaging me a link to where you got them?

Were they battery operated or wired to the mains? Thirty minutes sounds very quick if they're mains wired with new flex. Or a replacement of existing alarms? 

The spark that did the job sourced them.

Sorry that's not much help.

Battery,sealed unit, 10 year life, should be ok, I know where the electrician lives etc😄

Looks like you can get a set fairly cheap of amazon, battery only is fine, and fairly easy to glue to ceiling and pair them yourself. not convinced not fully complying will effect peoples insurance as the extra alarms does not reduce someones risk of fire, and might be too much hassle for insurance companies to change and adapt polices designed for UK as whole for scotland only.   I was not even asked about smoke alarms in current admiral policy and cant see things will change if i auto renew next year.

Wait until you have a £500k claim to demolish and rebuild a burned out house.  That's when they will check the fine print.  Collecting premiums from a policy they've got a reason not to pay out on isn't a problem.

It’s not a requirement yet, and could in theory be delay again, so unlikely to be in policies meantime.

Personally though, I can see a time when it is slipped into the T&Cs. Usual small print is it is policy holder’s responsibility to check details of policy, etc.  Far from an IT expert but it is surely easy to program a clause to be inserted into a policy based on a Scottish postcode being entered esp with paperless systems?

Easy to miss things of importance in policies if in “small print”; auto renewal I think puts more responsibility on the policy holder to check the details and not just the headline points.

With my car insurance for example which I’ve auto renewed for many years, I only noticed last renewal a “new” clause about must accept manufacturer’s recommended software updates. No idea when that was actually added (maybe it was just at last renewal!).

They'd just put it in generically, i.e. "All fire safety measures required in law must be fully complied with; if they are not, benefits for fire damage on this policy do not apply".

Shows how easy it would be then for the insurance industry!

I’ll add for others reading, the sealed battery point applies to the battery CO detectors (if they are needed) as well.

I thought I had sorted out the changes in my mind - I had an electrician install smoke/heat alarms and he “checked” in the passing I had CO alarms. However, many months later I discovered that two CO alarms have replaceable batteries so will not meet the changes.

I guess next gas boiler service would have picked this up, but I’ve now have changed them. A further point to note with CO alarms at least (maybe same with some smoke alarms?) is they are not all 10 years life; one I got is marked 7 years.

Very easy.  Though whether they would is an interesting question.  I've not seen a term in a policy stating that electrical installations must be checked on a set period for compliance, for instance, despite such non-compliance causing rather a lot of fires.

With regard to sealed batteries, I've had one last far less than billed - I think it was about 4 years.  So still test them!