A quarter of Britons also don’t follow guidance in having a smoke alarm on every level of their property
According to the Fire Industry Association, you are around eight times more likely to die from a fire if you don’t have a working smoke alarm in your home.
Home Office figures for the year ending March 2022 reveal that, when attending house fires in homes where alarms were already fitted, firefighters found they had failed to operate in 26% of cases.
Guidance from Fire England recommends that people test their smoke alarms at least once a month, but a new YouGov RealTime survey has revealed that only 7% of Britons say they test their smoke alarms this often.
While the vast majority of Britons (92%) say they have at least one smoke alarm in their home, one in ten (10%) say they never test them.
One in five (21%) say they test their smoke alarms once every six to twelve months – the most popular frequency – followed by 16% who say they only test their alarms once every one to two years.
How many Britons have a smoke alarm on every level of their property?
Advice from Fire England recommends that you have at least one smoke alarm on every level of your home. While 70% of Britons say they have followed this guidance, 22% say they don’t have a smoke alarm on every level of their property, with a further 4% saying their home doesn’t have one at all.
In Scotland, where a new law came into force in February 2022 requiring every home to have smoke alarms on each storey, 82% of people say they have at least one on every level in their home compared to 69% in England.
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