JA2012 - Smoke Detectors

This product specific activity will allow the development of best practices and the exchange experience with carrying out market surveillance on smoke detectors (excluding those that form part of a fixed system). Moreover the primary objective is to detect and test faulty or insufficiently sensitive products on the marketplace. This work will be able to draw on some of the experience from the on-going CO detectors activity under JA2012.

Smoke detectors are vital safety equipment. Smoke alarms are used to protect persons and properties from smoke intoxication or from fires, while persons are asleep, because these products detect the smoke generated by flaming or fires. There are two types of smoke alarms commonly used: ionisation type and photoelectric type. It is a kind of product that might be forgotten in market surveillance plans, since they are not dangerous per se. But if such a product is not sufficiently sensitive or if the instructions for use and maintenance are not suitable or sufficient to guarantee that the user takes due care, the failure to detect commonly occurring smoke does not permit the user and others around him/her to take the measures necessary to avoid the risk associated with the spread of smoke and fire.

The participants from Austria (Leader), Belgium, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal will carry out coordinated market surveillance in their national markets.

This work will be closely coordinated with the CEN groups working on standards concerning smoke detectors. The Joint Action will support the work with the definition and checking of the test methods, the reproducibility of the tests, etc.