CO Alarm & Smoke Alarm Requirements for Devon Holiday Lets

For holiday lets, the legal duty comes from the Fire Safety Order 2005. The Home Office guidance for small paying guest accommodation says carbon monoxide detectors should be provided where living accommodation contains a gas or solid fuel-burning appliance. The Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015, as amended in 2022, apply to privately rented homes and require a CO alarm in any room used as living accommodation with a fixed combustion appliance, other than a gas cooker. Holiday lets are not named in those regulations, but I recommend meeting the same standard. The fire and rescue service normally enforces the Fire Safety Order.

CO alarms must be placed in each room that contains a fixed combustion appliance excluding gas cookers. For a typical holiday let with a gas boiler in a utility room and a log burner in the living room, you would need a CO alarm in each of those rooms. Alarms should be positioned at head height and away from draughts, external walls and sources of steam.

For holiday lets, the Home Office guidance says smoke alarms should be installed in hallways, corridors, staircases, lounges, dining rooms and bedrooms, with a heat alarm in every kitchen. The 2015 Regulations, which apply to privately rented homes, require at least one smoke alarm on every storey used as living accommodation and working alarms on the day a tenancy begins. For a holiday let, testing before every changeover is the sensible equivalent, and a dated record shows you did it.

Alarms should be tested regularly. For holiday lets with frequent changeovers, the most practical approach is to include alarm testing as part of a pre-arrival check or changeover procedure. Every test should be recorded (date, outcome, who tested) so you have evidence that checks are happening.

The Regulations specify that alarms must conform to British Standard EN 50291-1. Combination smoke/CO alarms can fulfil both requirements if they conform to the relevant standards. Battery-operated alarms are permissible, but mains-wired or interlinked alarms are generally more reliable for properties that are unoccupied for extended periods.

For a holiday let, the fire and rescue service normally enforces the Fire Safety Order. Failing to meet the Order's duties can be an offence where it puts people at risk of death or serious injury in case of fire, so a missing CO alarm in a room with a gas or solid fuel appliance is a risk to take seriously. Where the 2015 Regulations apply to a privately rented home, the local authority can serve a remedial notice, and failing to comply with it can lead to a fine of up to £5,000.