NSW Fire alarm compliance $99/year

What are the alternatives to paying a company to do fire alarm compliance in NSW?

Is it possible for the landlord to DIY? Changing batteries? Verifying the alarm works?

Thanks in advance.

 

If you mean smoke alarm compliance, then yes LL can do battery changes, replacement of the smoke detector on or before 10 year expiry (unless hardwired in which case the LL needs to have an electrical contractor’s license) and LL can test using canned smoke.

 

If you feel that you know your building code, the regulations that are applicable to your property and are suitable qualified? and competent to complete the task , then you may be able to do it yourself .
The regulations also change from time to time and the basic requirement is dependant on regulations on when the property was built or undertook major renovations (which then requires it to be brought up to current Fire Safety standards, what was valid 2 years ago may be overridden by new requirements.
But you also have to sign off on the documents every 12 months with your name and address then send a copy to Fire & Rescue NSW, your local council and also display at the property.You also have to acknowledge as the home owner or agent that the person that performed the task is competent to perform the task, which puts all the responsibility back on the owner in the event of smoke alarms not working as designed.

Many councils even require you to have a higher standard depending on the use of the building,ie long term rental v short term(airbnb,stayz etc and for boarding houses), which is generally laid out in the DA application.



A lot of information can be gained from here.

Lodge a fire safety statement

"Under clause 177 and clause 180 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2000 the building owner must provide a copy of fire safety statements to FRNSW as soon as possible after the statement is issued. The fire safety statement is a record of maintenance of the fire safety systems within a building that is required to be given to Council."

 

$2/wk, absolute exhortion, it'll send you broke. It's better to hold onto your pennies and hope that you haven't breached the BCA or RTA if the place burns down and you don't get sued.

Let your agent look after it.

 

With most of the compliance companies, the cost gets reduced down to about $75pa if you have 3 or more properties, making it a bit more palatable.

Think of it like an insurance policy.

Plus the ones that I use have a 24hr hotline and will respond directly to the tenants if the alarm starts going off - saves you a whole lot of hassle.

 

This topic (along with the requirements to charge tenants for water usage) seems to always result in large amounts of misinformation. As far as I can tell there is no NSW law that requires inspections of smoke alarms in tenanted class 1a buildings, smoke alarms are simply required to be present and noted in the condition report. Note that the standard form rental agreement in the NSW regulations specifies that tenants are responsible for replacing smoke alarm batteries (to answer one of the questions in the original post). (Edit - there were some legislation changes in 2018 that make the landlord now responsible for replacing batteries)

Marmot's post refers to regulations that are not relevant to normal landlords... The sections of the regulation he is referring to are not applicable for class 1a buildings (see section 167 of the same regulation). A class 1a building is essentially a normal house, or block of units where no unit is above any other unit (unless a boarding house, then it is class 1b). Classes of 2 or above are larger buildings with multiple units stacked vertically, usually under strata title where the "building owner" would be the owners corporation, not an individual landlord.

My NSW IP is a block of 5 units, they are all side-by-side with appropriate fire resistant walls between them. When my solicitor was working on the purchase he was asking the vendor for a bunch of this fire safety documentation, the vendor sent through the DA documentation which classified the building as a Class 1 building.

QLD is different, there is a law that specifies that smoke alarms need to be tested, but the law not only says that the owner can do this, but also gives instructions on how to test (essentially, just push the test button and listen for the noise). If you are looking online for answers, then you need to make sure that you are looking at sites referring to NSW law, or you will get the wrong answer to your question.

Personally, whenever I inspect my units I check (and document) that the green power light is on, that the smoke alarm is clean and free from dust, and that the alarm sounds when I press the button. I also take a photo of the alarm, which is timestamped to demonstrate that I looked at it.

These appear to be the relevant acts and regulations...
Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2000
Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979
Residential Tenancies Act 2010
Residential Tenancies Regulation 2010

 

A couple of clarifications to the above...
- I try to get the same brand of hard-wired smoke alarm that slides on and off a base. You can then simply purchase new units of the same brand and slide them onto the old bases. I believe that anyone can replace hard-wired smoke detectors in this way without requiring any license.
- If the landlord is doing it themselves they don't need a contractor's license. A qualified supervisor's certificate is also sufficient.
- The manual for the smoke alarms I use recommends against using canned smoke for testing as it can be unreliable of not performed properly. In fact I have heard of one case where a smoke alarm testing company took the alarms off the ceiling and smoke tested them on a benchtop under a bowl. All alarms tested failed to activate (which is more likely due to the poor test method, than any issue with the alarms themselves) which the company used to con the owner into paying to install replacement alarms.

 

A supervisor can't contract in their own right, they must contract under the company which holds the builder's licence and they are the nominated supervisor. They cannot contract with themselves, it must be the company.

If the smoke detector is on a plug-in base, then it is no different to changing a light globe. For sleep at night factor, I'd still have a sparky change it over.

 

House burning down because you put the batteries in the wrong way.

Vs

Peace of mind knowing someone else did it for you and you can blame them, all for the tiny price of $99 a year.

 

Agreed. Often it is the case that PMs contribute to this confusion or misinformation through 1) not knowing the actual requirements, but more often 2) not drawing the distinction between the legal requirements and what may be their agency policy.

I have often heard from PMs you must or are required to have a compliance company check smoke alarms or you must have or are required to have a water compliance certificate to charge water. We know this isn't true but may be, for good reason, an agency policy. Clarifying that point with landlords I believe would save a lot of confusion.

In fairness though, when these things come up there is at least a perceived general "feeling" for want of a better term that these services are some kind of unholy alliance between PMs and compliance companies to extract more money from an owner, that they are some kind of rort targeting landlords, PMs just passing the buck through laziness, PMs only do it because they get kickbacks, the list goes on! This is not true either, so the misinformation can arise from both sides.

Yes you can do it yourself, but that doesn't mean there aren't some very good reasons to engage one of these companies.

- Luke

 

Different states have different rules on this. If there's no legal requirement in your state don't do it. As Luke said above, differentiate between compulsory and agency policy.

Here in SA, there's a legal requirement to have smoke alarms but not to get them tested. So when electricians go out to do other jobs at the property , we'll have them have a look at them and if they're due for replacement then they are replaced - they rarely have any fixable parts in them and replacing them costs the same as an annual check (even though they last 10 yrs or so) so paying for the annual checks has never made sense to me.

However if you're investing in a state where testing is compulsory, and something happens that could have been mitigated by you, then you're going to get into big trouble.

 

smoke alarms save lives and are important, absolutely

but I reckon these companies and PMs charging $100 per year to press the button is a rort,

how often does a smoke alarm break? ive never had one, unless it was like 25 yrs old

especially how the rules push landlords to make it virtually compulsory to use these services

 

Its not the PM's charging it mate.

In some states it is compulsory

 

They do a fair bit more than press a button. You'll also find that the older batter operated alarms are being progressively replaced with wired alarms. More reliable (batteries don't go flat), but also require a higher qualification to test.

Mine also visit twice a year, when you consider travel time, I'd say the price is reasonable.

At the end of the day though, it's an insurance policy. You're really paying to shift the blame if there is a fire.

There's no requirement for inspections in Victoria at this point (QLD is at the other end with over the top requirements). I expect this will change by this time next year in VIC. Given the implications of the new legislation rolling out, I suspect a lot of property managers will refuse to manage a property that doesn't subscribe to this service. Even having the owner actively opts out, there's still going to be significant blow-back to the PM if a property isn't compliant.

 

Some pms insist on doing it and virtually make it compulsory, mate

 

I pay my handyman or people I know to go and press the button for my battery operated ones.
And they always have a few spare , so if it doesn't work, it takes them all of 5 mins to put a new one in

 

Sure, but your handyman doesn't have an insurance policy that gets you off the hook if there is a fire and it doesn't work. That's what you're really paying for.

 

Plenty of people out there prepared to save $20 over a life.

 

I pay around the same amount in Vic to have annual inspection organised by PM with peace of
mind knowing that in the unlikely event of worst case scenario happens, it's someone else's (ie
the smoke alarm safety compliance company) problem to worry about. And when time to claim
insurance, I have the appropriate compliance documentation in place.

I also pay for gas heater safety servicing/check compliance every two years again organised by
PM for the same reason.

Dont even think about cheap when it comes to EH&S compliance, think about its validity.
I am applying the same best practice learned from commercial properties to resi religiously.

Rgds,
FXD

 

Just returning to address some of the misinformation that I predicted earlier...

Except that there is no validity to what you mentioned. The inspections that you mention are not fulfilling any legal requirement, and will not bring you into compliance if you aren't compliant already (eg, if your annual inspection was 6 months ago, but your new tenant moved in 3 months ago and you didn't test and note the smoke alarm on the inspection report then you are not compliant)

You're not getting your money's worth if that's what you think you're paying for. If you're compliant then your own insurance will cover your liability. As far as getting "off the hook", no insurance will protect you if you are facing criminal charges. Any additional insurance is unnecessary and entirely worthless.

Replacing a 9V alkaline battery smoke alarm with a 10 year lithium battery version, or a mains powered version will have no effect on how they are tested. They have the same qualification requirements - there are no qualification requirements for testing of any of them. Generally the only time that there are any qualification requirements are for commercial or strata installations, not ones that an individual landlord would be responsible for. Also regarding qualifications, the QLD legislation (which you mentioned as being "over the top") explicitly says that the the landlord can test the alarms. Even the strictest state law was written specifically to allow people without any qualification to test smoke alarms.

There is so much wrong with this statement that I don't know where to start... But no, not going to happen!

Could you elaborate on what you mean here? When I think about fire systems in commercial properties I come up with two possibilities.
1 - Illuminated exit signs in hallways, fire drills, fire brigade callouts whenever someone burns the toast, water or gas deluge systems.
2 - Legal advice I have received relating to engineering risk management has generally been along the lines of - comply with the letter of the law, nothing more, nothing less, and don't try and be creative doing additional things because I think it might be better/safer.

Yes, but that's a different issue and not relevant to this discussion. Nobody here has suggested not complying in order to save costs. "It's good value" is a poor response to "it's unnecessary".