Say goodbye to smoke detector false alarms caused by airborne dust

Is everything going well in your operation? Then the last thing you need is a false alarm from your smoke detectors which can harm your productivity (and your bottom line). Want to know how to prevent this happening? Read on to find out.

• Smoke detectors in warehouses and production halls are highly sensitive
• The cost of false alarms caused by airborne dust in smoke detectors
• Airborne dust: the harbinger of trouble
• Quick fixes to prevent false alarms from airborne dust

We sincerely hope you've never experienced a false alarm in your business. The rush, uncertainty, and time wasted during such incidents are incredibly frustrating.

In a small household, the cause of an alarm can be quickly identified. But in a warehouse of production hall, that's not the case.

During a false alarm, operations come to a halt. Everything must be left as it is. The entire team is evacuated while searching for the cause, taking great care not to put themselves in danger. The fire department may even be called in.

It's even more frustrating when it later turns out that the whole situation could have been avoided because, after all that, there was never any smoke or fire.

We can't blame the poor smoke detectors; it's good that they are so sensitive. After all, smoke poses a risk to our health and even our lives. Not to mention the potential for a real fire.

But it’s also true that false smoke detector alarms can be very costly for you.

In the UK, the estimated cost of false alarms is around one billion pounds per year. Here’s why false alarms cost businesses so much :

1. Each false alarm results in a halt in operations, which incurs immediate costs through productivity loss and potentially long-term costs from consequential damages.

2. After each false alarm, the proper functioning of the smoke detector must be checked, and the device may require maintenance. Surprise! This is not cheap either.

3. Although not a cost factor for you, when the fire department is called out for false alarms, it has less capacity for real emergencies. This can cost lives, it can't get more precious than that.

Did you know that airborne dust and smoke particles in the air are the primary triggers for smoke detector false alarms? No? Well, now you do. It's true:

When dirt accumulates inside and on the casing of a smoke detector, it can interfere with the mechanism, resulting in false alarms.

If your production processes generate large amounts of dust (which is highly likely), this can become a problem sooner or later. Especially because smoke detectors in warehouses and production halls are typically installed on the ceiling, making regular cleaning almost impossible.

So, as you can see, preventing false alarms in a warehouse environment isn’t easy.

Keeping your facilities clean and free of dust can be time-consuming and challenging…

One thing you can do is keep your location – and smoke detectors – as clean as possible by regularly cleaning them. However, this needs to be done consistently and not sporadically.

As we know, reaching up to the ceiling to regularly clean your smoke detectors can be a real problem. It’s inconvenient and time-consuming. And for some companies, it’s not feasible to do between operations.