Carbon monoxide alarm rules for UK landlords, 2022

You are about to buy a £70 air meter because the listing mentions carbon monoxide, and the tenancy question was about an alarm. Those are different objects. Carbon monoxide alarm landlord rules in England, Scotland, and Wales do not use the same sentence, and none of them is satisfied by a consumer air-quality monitor from this hub.

The England duty below is the GOV.UK booklet for landlords and regulation 4 of the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015 as amended, including the 2022 changes. Scotland is the Scottish Government guidance on alarms in private rented properties. Wales is the Rent Smart Wales note. Shelter Legal is the source for the hall, the social-landlord date, and the placement line. We did not run a lab test. A qualifying purchase can earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

In short

From 1 October 2022, a relevant landlord in England fits a carbon monoxide alarm in any room used as living accommodation that contains a fixed combustion appliance, other than a gas cooker. Scotland expects a CO warning where a carbon-fuelled appliance is present, and Wales, from 1 December 2022, includes a gas hob in the Rent Smart Wales note. A smart air meter is not that alarm.

England’s rule from 1 October 2022

The England regulations, as the GOV.UK booklet explains them, place two duties on a relevant landlord. There is a smoke alarm on each storey of the premises on which there is a room used wholly or partly as living accommodation. There is a carbon monoxide alarm in any room used as living accommodation which contains a fixed combustion appliance, other than a gas cooker. The 2022 amendment is the date you will see quoted: 1 October 2022. Shelter Legal records that social landlords were brought into these England rules from that date, not only private landlords.

A wood stove, a gas fire, a boiler, or an oil or solid-fuel appliance in a room used as living accommodation is inside that carbon monoxide duty. Shelter’s reading, which this article follows, is that a hall or landing counts as a room. The regulations do not specify hard-wired versus battery. Placement is the alarm manufacturer’s guidance. Shelter describes the common practice as head height and about one to three metres from the source.

When a new tenancy begins, the alarm has to be checked and found in working order. If a tenant or a named person reports a fault on or after 1 October 2022, the landlord must repair or replace the alarm as soon as reasonably practicable. The alarm check does not sweep the flue, and a new battery in the alarm does not service the boiler.

The gas cooker is the exclusion inside the English sentence. Regulation 4 says other than a gas cooker. A kitchen whose only fixed combustion appliance is the cooker does not, on that English text, trigger the carbon monoxide alarm duty. A boiler in a living room, or a wood burner in a room you sit in, is a different appliance. The duty follows the room that contains the appliance, so a cooker elsewhere does not cancel the burner.

Scotland and Wales are different sentences

Scotland does not hand you the English regulations under another name. The Scottish Government guidance on carbon monoxide alarms in private rented properties says the tolerable standard expects a carbon monoxide warning where a carbon-fuelled appliance is present. That is the sentence to use for a Scottish private rented home. It does not say other than a gas cooker. This article will not paste England’s cooker exclusion onto Scotland, and a landlord who does that paste is using the wrong nation’s text.

Wales has its own date and its own list. From 1 December 2022, the Rent Smart Wales note expects a carbon monoxide alarm in each rented room with a gas, oil, or solid-fuel appliance. The same note includes a gas hob. A hob that would sit outside the English cooker exclusion can sit inside the Welsh note. The Welsh date is six weeks after England’s 1 October 2022.

Write the nation on the checklist before you write the appliance. England: fixed combustion appliance in living accommodation, gas cooker excluded, 1 October 2022. Scotland: carbon-fuelled appliance, tolerable standard, no cooker exclusion copied from England. Wales: gas, oil, or solid fuel, gas hob included in the Rent Smart Wales note, 1 December 2022. The wood-burner page in this hub is about meters and stoves as a buying limit. The duty itself is this article. A wood burner in living accommodation is an English landlord alarm. It is not a reason to buy a particle meter and call the regulation met.

Northern Ireland is not any of those three texts. Do not stretch the English regulations, the Scottish tolerable standard, or Rent Smart Wales across the Irish Sea because the shop ships to Belfast. Look up the Northern Ireland rule on its own page. Until you have, do not tell a tenant that England’s cooker exclusion applies there.

What these rules do not cover

The GOV.UK booklet says the England regulations are not aimed at owner-occupied properties. If you live in the home you own, this landlord duty is not the booklet’s target. This article does not invent an owner-occupier statute to fill the gap. Where a combustion appliance is in use, a proper carbon monoxide alarm is still the safety device. The absence of a tenancy does not turn a £70 air meter into that device.

The regulations, on the Shelter reading, do not choose a brand and do not choose hard-wired over battery. A smoke alarm on the landing meets the smoke line. It does not meet the carbon monoxide line. Carbon monoxide is colourless, and a particle reading will not stand in for an alarm specified for that gas.

Enforcement beyond the booklet is outside this page. From a report on or after 1 October 2022, the duty is to repair or replace the alarm as soon as reasonably practicable. A tenant who thinks the alarm is missing can say so to the landlord in writing and keep the date. That report is the trigger the regulation names. It is not a home diagnosis of the flue.

If you suspect carbon monoxide, stop using the appliance and contact a Gas Safe registered engineer. Do not decide the room is safe because a consumer screen has gone green. The alarm regulations are about fitting and repairing an alarm. Exposure is an emergency for a qualified person.

A consumer air meter is not that alarm

The air quality monitor comparison in this hub is a set of consumer meters. The Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor, ASIN B08X2V5K28, was £69.99 in that capture. The listing’s five factors are PM2.5, VOC, carbon monoxide, humidity, and temperature. There is no CO2 line in those five. A carbon monoxide factor on a smart display is why people buy it for a landlord question. It is the wrong object. No other kept meter in the set is the alarm either.

The top pick in that comparison is a different product. The BREATHE Airmonitor Plus Gen 2 was £99.99, with NDIR CO2, particles, TVOC, formaldehyde, temperature, and humidity. Carbon monoxide is not listed. It is an indoor-air screen, not a carbon monoxide alarm under the England regulations. The Temtop S1 was £31.99, with PM2.5, temperature, and humidity, and no CO2 line. Neither price makes either meter that alarm.

Use the buying guide when you want a meter for particles or carbon dioxide in a room you already ventilate. Use this article when the question is whether the landlord had to fit an alarm. A wood burner can be both a particle problem and an alarm problem, and the meter does not discharge the alarm. Fit the alarm the regulations describe, from a maker who specifies it as a carbon monoxide alarm, and place it as that maker says.

A tenant who can see a smart display and cannot see an alarm has not been given the device the English duty names. Keep the alarm’s own test button, expiry date, and fitting date in the file. A tenancy file that only shows a Wi-Fi air meter still leaves the duty open. England, Scotland, and Wales each want the alarm itself, not a graph that happens to mention a gas.