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Smoke Alarm Nuisance Source Characterization: Review and Recommendations

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Abstract

Nuisance alarms have been identified as a leading cause of disabled smoke alarms in homes. In the 2013 Edition of NFPA 72, National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code, the Technical Committee approved requiring household alarms and detectors installed between 6 ft (1.8 m) and 20 ft (6.1 m) of cooking appliances to be listed for resistance to common cooking sources 2016 and for all household alarms, and detectors to be listed for resistance to common nuisances by 2019, respectively. There is currently no clear understanding of how “resistance to common nuisance sources” should be defined within these requirements. In this paper, Statistical data, surveys, and alarm installations were assessed to quantify the potential impacts of reducing nuisance alarms toward overall public safety and reduction of fire loss. Based on these reports, it has been estimated that elimination of nuisance alarms may reduce annual U.S. fire deaths by as much as 10%, or 214 deaths per year (1050 injuries). This number does not account for negative potential consequences on death and injury rates, such as increased alarm costs or decreased sensitivity to real fires. A review of laboratory test data and studies evaluating household installation performance was conducted to identify and characterize common household nuisance sources, such as cooking (60% to 80% of nuisance alarms), water mist (1% to 40%), or increased sensitivity from long term contamination (up to 70% of nuisance alarms). Detailed recommendations are made based on existing data to address remaining information gaps and develop new performance test protocols in ANSI/UL 217 and ANSI/UL 268 product standards in order to meet the NFPA 72-2013 requirements.

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Acknowledgments

The compilation and review of the data in this paper was conducted at the request and with support from National Fire Protection Research Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. JENSEN HUGHES, 3610 Commerce Drive, Suite 817, Baltimore, MD, 21227-1652, USA

    Joshua Dinaburg & Daniel Gottuk

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  1. Joshua Dinaburg
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  2. Daniel Gottuk
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Correspondence to Joshua Dinaburg.

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Dinaburg, J., Gottuk, D. Smoke Alarm Nuisance Source Characterization: Review and Recommendations. Fire Technol 52, 1197–1233 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10694-015-0502-1

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