The short answer. In England, since 1 October 2022, every private rented home must have at least one smoke alarm on every storey containing a room used as living accommodation, and a carbon monoxide alarm in any room used as living accommodation that contains a fixed combustion appliance — a gas or oil boiler, a gas fire, a log burner. Gas cookers are excluded. The landlord must check every alarm is working on the first day of each new tenancy, and repair or replace any alarm reported as faulty. Enforcement runs through a remedial notice from the council, and a penalty of up to £5,000 per breach for ignoring one. What the regulations do not do is tell you what kind of alarm to fit — that comes from somewhere else, and it is where most landlords get caught out.
F&A Electrical fits and certifies hardwired interlinked smoke and heat alarm systems across Haringey, Hackney, Islington, Enfield, Waltham Forest, Camden, Barnet, Newham and Tower Hamlets. Call 07407 627542 or 07500 721453.
What the regulations actually require
The rules are the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015, as amended by the 2022 Regulations that took effect on 1 October 2022. They apply to private rented homes in England and, since the amendment, to social housing too. In plain terms, there are four duties.
- A smoke alarm on every storey that contains a room used as living accommodation. One per floor is the floor of the standard, not the ceiling. A bathroom or a WC counts as a room used as living accommodation for this purpose, so a converted loft bathroom puts that storey in scope.
- A carbon monoxide alarm in any room used as living accommodation containing a fixed combustion appliance. Boiler, gas fire, oil-fired heater, solid fuel stove. Government guidance is that a purely decorative fireplace that cannot be used does not trigger it, and gas cookers do not trigger it either — a point worth knowing, because plenty of inventory clerks and some letting agents get this the wrong way round.
- Check each alarm is working on the first day of the tenancy. Not the week before, not the week after. Press the test button with the tenant there if you can, and write it into the check-in report with the date.
- Repair or replace once a fault is reported. The duty is triggered by the tenant telling you, so your tenancy paperwork should say plainly how to report it, and your records should show what you did and when.
This is the compliance floor for a single let. It is deliberately low, and meeting it does not make a property well protected.
What the regulations do not say — and why that matters
The regulations are silent on the type of alarm. They do not require mains-powered alarms, they do not require interlinking, and they do not name a grade or a category from BS 5839-6. On the bare wording of the law, battery alarms screwed to the ceiling can satisfy them in a single let.
The pressure to do better comes from four other directions, and in London at least one of them usually applies:
- HMO licence conditions. If the property is a licensable HMO, the licence conditions — not the 2022 regulations — set the alarm standard, and they routinely require a hardwired, interlinked system to a stated grade with a test certificate. That is a condition of the licence, so failing it is a licensing problem rather than a smoke-alarm-regulations problem, and the consequences are heavier. See HMO EICRs and licensing.
- Additional and selective licensing. Several London boroughs operate schemes beyond mandatory HMO licensing, and the conditions attached to them differ between boroughs and change when a scheme is renewed. Check the council’s current scheme for your street rather than relying on what applied to your last property.
- BS 5839-6. The code of practice for alarms in domestic premises. It is guidance, not law, but it is the yardstick an environmental health officer, a fire officer, an insurer and an expert witness will all reach for, and it recommends mains-powered interlinked systems for rented accommodation.
- The Housing Health and Safety Rating System. Councils can act on fire hazards under the HHSRS independently of the alarm regulations. A single battery alarm in a three-storey house with a bedroom in the loft is a fire-risk finding whatever the 2022 regulations say.
So the honest advice is the one we give on site: treat one-alarm-per-storey as the legal minimum you must not fall below, and a hardwired interlinked system as what the property should actually have. The gap between the two is a few hundred pounds, once.
Grades, in plain English
BS 5839-6 describes systems by grade (how it is powered and monitored) and category (how much of the property it covers). Four labels cover almost every London rental.
- Battery-only. Sealed or replaceable cells, no mains. Can meet the bare 2022 duties in a single let. Not accepted under most HMO licence conditions.
- Grade D3. Mains-powered with battery back-up, interlinked, covering escape routes — hallways, stairs, landings. The usual target for a straightforward single let.
- Grade D2 LD2. The same, plus detectors in the rooms that present the highest risk, typically bedrooms, with a heat detector in the kitchen. What small licensed HMOs are generally asked for.
- Grade A LD1. A proper panel system with sounders and detection throughout, designed and certificated to BS 5839. Larger and taller HMOs.
Two practical notes. A heat detector, not a smoke detector, belongs in a kitchen — a smoke alarm over a hob gets taken down within a fortnight, and a disabled alarm is worse than none. And interlinking is the single biggest improvement you can make: a fire starting in a ground-floor kitchen needs to wake someone asleep two floors up, and only linked alarms do that.
Where the alarms go
- Every escape route — hall, stairwell, each landing.
- Bedrooms, for LD2 and above.
- A heat detector in the kitchen, and in an integral garage or utility where one is wanted.
- A carbon monoxide alarm in any room used as living accommodation with a fixed combustion appliance, sited to the manufacturer’s instructions — which for most CO alarms means at breathing height on a wall, one to three metres horizontally from the appliance, not tight against the boiler.
- Off the apex in a pitched ceiling, and clear of light fittings, bathroom doorways and anywhere steam or dust collects.
In converted London flats, the one that gets missed is the top of the stairs in a two-storey maisonette. One alarm in the lower hall is not an alarm on every storey.
How enforcement actually works
Councils do not fine you out of nowhere. The sequence is set out in the regulations, and knowing it is worth more than knowing the maximum penalty.
- Where the local housing authority has reasonable grounds to believe a landlord has not complied, it must serve a remedial notice.
- The landlord then has 28 days to do the work.
- Within those 28 days the landlord may make written representations. The notice is suspended while they are considered, and the authority must consider them within 28 days.
- The authority must then confirm the notice in writing within seven days of the end of that period. If it does not, the notice is treated as withdrawn.
- If a live notice is not complied with, the authority must arrange the work itself through an authorised person, provided the occupier consents, with at least 48 hours’ notice to the occupier.
- It may also issue a penalty charge notice of up to £5,000 for the breach. The landlord can request a review in writing within the stated period, which must be at least 28 days, and can then appeal to the First-tier Tribunal — on grounds including factual error, error of law, or that the penalty is unreasonable. The penalty is suspended while an appeal is live.
The practical lesson: a remedial notice is a deadline, not a fine, and almost every penalty we hear about followed an ignored notice rather than a first inspection. If one lands, get the work booked inside the 28 days and keep the certificate.
What it costs
Prices are labour and certification only; detectors and cable are itemised separately. Our minimum charge is £108 inc VAT (£90 + VAT) for the first hour, and it comes off the job if we go on to do the work. Full system pricing by property size sits on our smoke alarm installation page; the table below is the quick version.
| Job | Price |
|---|---|
| Minimum charge / small jobs — swap a faulty alarm, re-site one, fault-find a chirping system | £108 inc VAT (£90 + VAT) |
| Standard labour after the first hour | £90 + VAT per hour |
| Hardwired interlinked system, 1–2 bed flat | from £260 — see system prices |
| Hardwired interlinked system, 3–4 bed house, Grade D LD2 | from £420 |
| Small licensed HMO, Grade D LD2 with logbook | from £640 |
| Larger HMO, Grade A LD1 panel system | quoted after survey |
| Annual test and certificate on an existing system | from £140 |
| Battery-only to hardwired upgrade, per alarm | from £85 |
| Carbon monoxide alarm fitted and recorded alongside other work | from £108 |
What moves the figure is the cable route, not the detectors. A flat with a loft above the hall is quick; a ground-floor flat with a solid ceiling and no void means chasing walls and making good, and that is the part worth asking about before you accept a price over the phone.
What you should be handed afterwards
Alarms are a notifiable circuit when the wiring is new, so the paperwork matters as much as the kit:
- A BS 7671 certificate for the electrical work — an Electrical Installation Certificate for a new circuit, or a Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificate for an addition to an existing one.
- A BS 5839-6 installation or commissioning certificate recording the grade and category fitted, where the alarms went, and the interlink test.
- A logbook for an HMO, so weekly and periodic tests can be recorded by whoever manages the property.
- Your own dated record of the tenancy-start test, with the tenant’s acknowledgement. That is the document that answers the council’s first question.
If you are unsure which certificate you should be holding, our guide to the paperwork you should have after electrical work sets out each one and who wants to see it. Alarms and an EICR are separate requirements, and we are usually asked to do both on one visit — see EICR costs in London.
Common questions
Do my smoke alarms have to be hardwired?
Not under the 2022 regulations, which say nothing about power supply or interlinking. They very often do have to be hardwired under an HMO or selective licence condition, and BS 5839-6 recommends it for rented homes. So the answer depends on what the property is, not on the alarm regulations alone.
Do I need a carbon monoxide alarm if the flat has a gas hob?
Not on account of the hob. Gas cookers are excluded from the carbon monoxide requirement. If there is a gas boiler in the kitchen, the kitchen needs one because of the boiler.
How often do the alarms have to be tested?
The landlord’s legal duty is a check on the first day of each new tenancy, plus repair or replacement once a fault is reported. Beyond that, BS 5839-6 and sensible practice put a weekly test on the occupier and a periodic test and certificate on the landlord — annually for most rentals, and as the licence conditions state for an HMO.
Who is responsible for testing mid-tenancy, me or the tenant?
Day-to-day testing sits with the occupier, which is why the test button and what it does should be shown at check-in. The repair duty is the landlord’s, and it starts when the tenant reports a fault — so make reporting easy and log what comes in.
My alarm keeps chirping and the tenant has taken it down. What now?
A chirp is usually a depleted back-up cell, a detector at the end of its ten-year life, or an interlink fault pulling the whole line into alarm. An alarm that has been removed is a compliance breach and a real risk, so it is worth treating as urgent rather than tidying up at the next inspection. We can usually diagnose and sort a chirping system inside the minimum charge.
Does the 2022 standard apply to a lodger or a holiday let?
The regulations apply to tenancies and licences to occupy in the private rented sector, with some exclusions, and there are separate fire safety duties for short-term and shared accommodation. If you are unsure which regime covers the arrangement, ask the council’s private sector housing team before you let it rather than afterwards.
Do alarms count towards an EICR?
No — an EICR assesses the fixed electrical installation. Where the alarms are hardwired, their circuit is inspected and tested as part of it, but a satisfactory EICR is not evidence that your alarm layout complies, and an alarm certificate is not evidence that your installation is safe. Landlords need both, and the two usually fall due at different times. See our landlord electrical compliance checklist and landlord EICRs.
Book an alarm installation or a compliance check
F&A Electrical is an NICEIC-approved, Part P registered electrical contractor based at Ten 87 Studios, Markfield Road, Tottenham N15, covering Haringey, Hackney, Islington, Enfield, Waltham Forest, Camden, Barnet, Newham and Tower Hamlets, plus the central EC, WC and W1 streets. Checkatrade rating 9.32 out of 10 from 242 reviews. Fully insured, certified to the current edition of BS 7671.
Call 07407 627542 or 07500 721453. Tell us the property type, the number of storeys and bedrooms, and whether it is licensed — those three things settle the grade on the phone, and the rest is a look at the ceilings and the board.
More guides: all our electrical guides · smoke alarm installation and prices · fire alarm installation · HMO EICRs · landlord EICR penalties explained · EICR costs in London · PAT testing. Areas we cover: London service areas · electrician in Tottenham · electrician in North London.