- Author
-
Hansen, A. T.
|
Platts, R. E.
- Title
- Costs and Benefits of Smoke Alarms in Canadian Houses.
- Coporate
- Scanada Consultants, Ltd., Ontario, Canada
- Sponsor
- Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., Ontario, Canada
- Report
-
Phase 2
March 1, 1990
54 p.
- Keywords
-
fire alarm systems
|
cost benefit analysis
|
residential buildings
|
fire safety
|
fire fatalities
|
effectiveness
|
installing
|
maintenance
- Abstract
- The study was intended to establish the effectiveness of smoke alarms, evaluate the costs and benefits of extending their use to houses that do not currently have them, and consider ways of improving their dependability in use. The study investigated and analyzed Canadian and American fire records from 1980 to present. The study concludes that smoke alarms are saving about 26 lives per year per million new houses at very small or nil cost per life saved. The report also concludes that the opportunity to extend smoke alarm protection to the 18% portion of Canadian houses still without smoke alarms and to ensure that the protection is maintained in other houses is one of the greatest life-saving and cost-saving opportunities open to society.