NSW: Q&A Smoke Alarms in Strata Units

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We received the following questions about smoke alarms in NSW strata units. Peter Berney, Solutions in Engineering and Chris Chatham, Linkfire have provided the following responses.

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• QUESTION: Annual fire inspections were just carried out. Who is financially responsible for replacement of smoke alarms in a strata building? Owners Corp or individual owners?
• QUESTION: Each apartment has a heat & smoke detector wired to our fire system panel, plus a smoke detector installed and paid for by owners. Our fire safety inspector insists on inspecting lot owner’s smoke detectors. Is this necessary since the smoke detectors are owned by the lot owners.
• QUESTION: We have been told we need to install extra smoke alarms and all alarms must be hard-wired. Can a local council impose stricter requirements for smoke alarms in strata than the NSW Fire Legislation?
• QUESTION: In NSW, who is responsible to ensure the smoke alarms in strata units are operational? Who’s responsibility is the cost of replacement and installation of new smoke detectors?

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Question: Annual fire inspections were just carried out. Who is financially responsible for replacement of smoke alarms in a strata building? Owners Corp or individual owners?

Answer: Realistically this will come down to the agreement you have with your Strata and Building Management; the following is the most common scenario that we see.

Realistically this will come down to the agreement you have with your Strata and Building Management; the following is the most common scenario that we see.

When Smoke alarms are at the end of their 10-year life span, this is reported back to the Strata / Owners Corp, generally, a large number of these will require replacement at the same time, due to the installation at the build of the apartments.

The replacement of the alarms is then coordinated through the Owners Corp (best like for like to try to keep all alarms the same), rather than allowing them to be replaced by the individual owners where there could be further issues going forward.

The costs for these works are then invoiced to the individual owners through the Strata or Owners Corp.

Chris Chatham
Linkfire
P: 0476 233 109
E: [email protected]

This article is not intended to be personal advice and you should not rely on it as a substitute for any form of advice.

This post appears in Strata News #399.

Question: Each apartment has a heat & smoke detector wired to our fire system panel, plus a smoke detector installed and paid for by owners. Our fire safety inspector insists on inspecting lot owner’s smoke detectors. Is this necessary since the smoke detectors are owned by the lot owners.

We have been with the same Fire service company since our apartments were built 16 years ago.

We are paying an excessive amount to our fire company for inspections. I am site manager of our building and also an owner on the committee.

We have two fire detectors in all apartments one is a heat & smoke detector wired to our fire system panel, the other is a smoke detector installed and paid for by owners. The owners smoke detectors have just been replaced by all owners.

I was aware that the Heat/Smoke detectors need to be check for fire safety. Our fire safety inspector now insists on inspecting lot owner’s smoke detectors. Why has this changed? Is this necessary since the smoke detectors are owned by the lot owners.

Answer: If a building has SOU smoke alarms the performance of these smoke alarms needs to be maintained.

Certainly, detectors connected to a fire detection system (i.e. fire panel) should be appropriately maintained. For stand-alone smoke alarms in Sole-Occupancy Units (SOUs) though, it is a little more complicated.

Smoke alarms (including any in SOUs) may already be listed in the FSS for a building, or they may otherwise be considered an essential FSM due to clause 186E of the Regs if they were installed after the FSS was issued. Therefore, either way, if a building has SOU smoke alarms the performance of these smoke alarms needs to be maintained.

This is the difficult part. If the building owner has engaged an Accredited Practitioner-Fire Safety (AP-FS) to complete and sign off the required assessment for the Annual Fire Safety Statement (AFSS), as they now have to do by law, then it may be the opinion of that AP-FS that they cannot verify the performance of smoke alarms inside SOUs without undertaking a suitable inspection and/or having access to appropriate service records.

As for why you have recently seen a change of process, this may well be due to this performance aspect described above. Recent changes in NSW legislation have in effect ‘raised the bar’ in relation to the assessments undertaken for signing off the AFSS, with practitioners now requiring specific accreditation that they could in practice lose if they are not doing the job properly. As the entire industry tries to come to terms with the changes and restructures their business models accordingly, significant changes (and cost increases) are not entirely unexpected, unfortunately.

Chris Chatham
Linkfire
P: 0476 233 109
E: [email protected]

This article is not intended to be personal advice and you should not rely on it as a substitute for any form of advice.

This post on appears in Strata News #387

Question: We have been told we need to install extra smoke alarms and all alarms must be hard-wired. Can a local council impose stricter requirements for smoke alarms in strata than the NSW Fire Legislation?

I live in an apartment in a strata scheme with three buildings and fourteen apartments.

After our latest fire safety inspection, we were notified that we were not compliant. Namely, we need to install extra smoke alarms in each apartment and all of the alarms must be hard-wired. Apparently, the Council (Ku-ring-gai) have stated to the fire safety inspectors that this has to be done.

All the bedrooms in the apartments are “clustered” and all have an alarm between the cluster and the living area. Most alarms are battery only. As far as I can see, the requirement for NSW strata is one alarm if the bedrooms are in a cluster and battery alarms are permitted.

Have I understood correctly? Can a local council impose stricter requirements for smoke alarms in strata than the NSW Fire Legislation?

Answer: Yes – a local council could potentially impose stricter requirements if they believe it is necessary for the safety of occupants.

This is a hard one to get across without all of the information at hand as there are a lot of variables that would play a part in those questions, however, we can address the last point directly:

Under Part 2, Schedule 5 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, a relevant enforcement authority (e.g. a local council), can issue a Fire Safety Order requiring the recipient to do or stop doing anything if they believe it is necessary to “…ensure or promote the safety of persons in the event of fire…”. So in relation to that part of your question, effectively yes – a local council could potentially impose stricter requirements if they believe it is necessary for the safety of occupants.

Chris Chatham
Linkfire
P: 0476 233 109
E: [email protected]

This article is not intended to be personal advice and you should not rely on it as a substitute for any form of advice.

This post on appears in Strata News #379

Question: In NSW, who is responsible to ensure the smoke alarms in strata units are operational? Who’s responsibility is the cost of replacement and installation of new smoke detectors?

Our strata committee regularly checks all our unit’s smoke detectors to ensure that they are still operative. I understand that this is a requirement under fire prevention legislation in NSW, and could also have a bearing on our strata’s property insurance.

I have recently discovered that smoke detectors have an effective ‘use by date’ and although 6 monthly checks have led to backup battery replacements over time, the entire unit is supposed to be replaced after 10 years.

As our installed units have a replacement date of 2014 is our strata in breach of any NSW fire prevention guidelines, or is the strata’s fire insurance cover compromised?

Answer: The Owners Corporation would not be in breach.

There are provisions in the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation that require existing buildings to install smoke alarms, but they are only limited. There are specific requirements for each classification of a building, including the locations of the alarms, however, there is no requirement for photo-electric alarms, unlike that has been introduced as of the 1st January 2017 in Queensland.

The responsibility for the replacement of the smoke alarm is that of the owner and any smoke alarms in the common property would be that of the Owners Corporation. The smoke alarms need to have supply from mains electricity or a non-removable battery with a minimum life expectancy of 10 years that is connected to the alarm.

The Owners Corporation would not be in breach of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation if an individual lot had not replaced their smoke alarm if it has passed its use-by date and this would not affect the Owners Corporation’s strata Insurance.

What would happen if an owner didn’t replace the batteries? I imagine the mother of all personal injury lawsuits! We need only to look at the drivers for change elsewhere e.g. The Childers Palace Backpackers Hostel fire 23rd June 2000 where 15 people lost their lives forced the Queensland Government to introduce the toughest and ‘best practice’ Fire Safety requirements in the country. The timber hostel did not have working smoke detectors or fire alarms.

Another example of what happens when smoke alarms are not maintained or tampered with is the Slacks Creek Fire in 2011 south of Brisbane. 11 people died in the worst residential house fire in Australia. When the fire started, no smoke alarms were functioning. The alarms had been disabled because they caused too many false alarms. Less than 15 minutes later, the house was a shell and eleven people had died. Had working smoke alarms been fitted, most lives would have been saved.

This is why Queensland introduced a requirement for Photoelectric smoke alarms to be fitted so that this type of preventable disaster would not happen again. Ionization alarms are not good at detecting fires. They ‘feel’ for the fire, whereas Photoelectric fire alarms ‘see’ the fire by detecting visible combustion particles. They won’t sound an alarm when the toast is burnt or shower steam escapes but they will sound an alarm where there is a dangerous, smouldering fire!

Research shows that both have comparable response times in “fast flame” fires, but photoelectric alarms respond over 15 minutes faster to a smouldering fire. In one study, the only time the ionization alarm was quickest was in detecting burning toast!

Smoke alarms are a really important warning device because unfortunately, there are too many ways in which a fire can start in a household. This includes:

• Kitchen stoves / cooking equipment
• Electric blankets
• Faulty wiring
• Smoking
• Overheated lighting
• Candles
• Heating (e.g. Portable heaters)

Most fires happen in the middle of the night when you’re sleeping – you may only have a few minutes to wake up and get you and your family outside. Most fire deaths are the result of smoke inhalation rather than from burns, another good reason to make sure this life-saving device is working.

This post on appears in Strata News #146.

Peter Berney
Solutions in Engineering
T: 1300 136 036
E: [email protected]

This article is not intended to be personal advice and you should not rely on it as a substitute for any form of advice.

Share your thoughts about smoke alarms in NSW. Have a question or something to add to the article? Leave a comment below.

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Read next:

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• NSW: Key changes to smoke alarm requirements for rented homes
• NSW: Smoke Alarms in Residential Accommodation

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