fire alarms

[nospam]

Hello,

I'm wondering what type of fire alarm to fit to my "utility" room. It's basically a small room with the washing machine and tumble drier in. I've heard stories of (rare) instances when tumble driers catch fire, so I think a fire alarm would be useful. It's a condenser drier, so steam should not be a problem.

Would you recommend a heat detector, as used in the kitchen, or would an ionisation alarm be ok?

Thanks.

[Peter Parry]

Typically a "condensing" drier when operating puts between a pint and a quarts of water into the room it is in as vapour while operating.

Most "fires" in washing machines and tumble driers are failures of the mains filters or motor capacitors. This produces smoke but not usually much else. An ionisation detector would alert you to this but might have an unacceptable false alarm rate from the condensing dryer. A rate of heat rise detector would warn you more reliably - but probably just a bit too late to be very useful.

The really critical alarm to have is an ionisation detector on the first floor landing ceiling. This will pick up any real fire developing downstairs in time to give you a chance to get out and will often trigger before any of the ground floor alarms go off.