Smoke Alarm Batteries: Whose Job Is It In A Rental?

The smoke alarm has started chirping at three in the morning. Is that yours to sort out, or theirs?

Short answer: the battery is usually yours, the alarm itself is always theirs, and there are two situations where even the battery isn't your problem.

The short version

• Working alarms at the start of the tenancy: the landlord's job, on the first day, every time.
• Replacing a flat battery during the tenancy: normally yours.
• A faulty alarm: theirs, to repair or replace once you've told them.
• If you can't change the battery yourself, that's theirs too. The guidance says so explicitly.

What must be installed

Since 1 October 2022 the rules apply to private and social landlords alike. Your landlord must ensure:

• At least one smoke alarm on every storey that has a room used as living accommodation. So a two storey house needs two, minimum. A loft conversion used as a bedroom counts as a storey.
• A carbon monoxide alarm in any room used as living accommodation containing a fixed combustion appliance. A boiler, a gas fire, a wood burner, an oil heater.

One exclusion catches people out: gas cookers are specifically excluded from the carbon monoxide requirement. So a kitchen with only a gas hob doesn't legally need a CO alarm, even though a faulty one can still produce carbon monoxide. Given they cost about fifteen pounds, having one anyway is sensible regardless of what the regulations demand.

The rules set a minimum, not a good standard. A hallway alarm on each floor is the legal floor; alarms in bedrooms and a heat alarm in the kitchen are better.

Working on day one

Your landlord must ensure every required alarm is in working order at the start of each new tenancy. Not present. Working.

So test them on the day you move in, before you unpack. Press and hold the test button on each one. If any doesn't sound, report it in writing immediately, because that's a breach from the outset and it's much easier to establish now than in six months.

While you're there, note where they all are and what type they are. It takes two minutes and it tells you whether the property meets the minimum at all.

So who changes the battery?

The bit the question is really about.

During the tenancy, you are advised to replace the batteries. That's the government's own guidance, and it's the sensible reading: it's a routine, low-cost job in a property you occupy, like changing a light bulb.

But two exceptions matter.

First, if it still doesn't work after new batteries, report it. That's a faulty alarm, and the landlord must repair or replace it once informed.

Second, and this is the part people don't know: if you are unable to replace the batteries yourself, report it and it becomes theirs. The guidance says so directly. That covers a genuinely high ceiling with no safe way to reach it, a disability or health condition, or being elderly and unsteady on a stepladder.

Nobody should be balancing on a kitchen chair at midnight because they think the rules require it. If you can't do it safely, you don't have to.

Sealed ten-year alarms, which many landlords now fit, have no user-replaceable battery at all. When those start chirping the whole unit needs replacing, and that is unambiguously the landlord's.

Reporting a faulty alarm

In writing, always, and treat it as urgent rather than routine.

Say which alarm, where it is, what it's doing, and that you've already tried a new battery if you have. Ask for it to be dealt with promptly, and keep the reply.

If nothing happens, your council can serve a remedial notice, and a landlord who fails to comply faces a fine of up to £5,000. Local authorities do enforce this, because it's fire safety rather than an administrative detail.

When a landlord won't repair covers escalating, and what your landlord must fix covers the wider duties.

Never disable one

Worth saying plainly, because it happens constantly and it kills people.

Taking the battery out of a chirping alarm, or one that keeps triggering when you cook, and then forgetting to replace it, is how households end up with no working smoke detection at all.

If an alarm is going off from cooking, it's in the wrong place or it's the wrong type. That's a repair to report, not a reason to disconnect it. A heat alarm rather than a smoke alarm is the usual fix for a kitchen.

And if a carbon monoxide alarm sounds: get everyone out, open windows on the way, don't switch anything on or off, and ring the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999. Carbon monoxide has no smell and the early symptoms look like flu. Treat every activation as real.

The related duties

Alarms sit alongside two others worth checking:

• Gas safety check every 12 months by a Gas Safe registered engineer, with a copy of the certificate given to you. If you've never seen one, ask in writing.
• Electrical installation inspection every five years, with a report you're entitled to see.

If a landlord hasn't done the alarms, it's worth asking about those too, because compliance tends to travel together. If the boiler breaks covers the gas side, and staying safe in your rental covers the rest.

A sensible routine

• Test every alarm monthly. It takes thirty seconds for the whole house.
• Change batteries yearly if they're the replaceable kind, whether or not they've started chirping.
• Test them all again whenever someone new moves into a shared house, and agree whose job it is.
• Report anything faulty in writing, and keep the thread.

The honest summary

Working alarms on day one are the landlord's. Batteries during the tenancy are normally yours, unless you can't safely do it, in which case they're theirs. A faulty alarm is always theirs once you've told them.

Test them monthly, report faults in writing, and never take a battery out to stop the noise.

And if you moved into a property with no working alarms, that's a fire safety failure on day one and worth other renters knowing about. Reviewing your landlord and agent is how they find out.

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This guide covers England, where the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (Amendment) Regulations 2022 apply from 1 October 2022. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own requirements, and Scotland's are stricter. General information rather than legal advice. Sources: GOV.UK guidance for landlords and tenants, the 2022 Regulations.