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Fire alerting for deaf people
Jan. 8th, 2025 11:09 pmI was recently discussing how you know about fires and realised my reply thread could be a blogpost, so here you are.
I am deaf enough that without hearing aids, and while I'm asleep I won't hear a fire alarm, not even if it's really loud. I didn't have access to deaf-accessible fire alarms till I was nearly 30.
UK: Free fire alerting installations by fire or social services
In the UK often local fire services or social services will fit deaf-accessible fire alarm systems for free. In our case, the service was so unreliable and they kept not turning up (if there's a fire, the fire service will just not show up). So we bought our own.
I am not naming brands cos I don't want to get sued by some corporate whatevers.
Domestic deaf fire alerting systems in the 2000s and why ours sucked
In about 2009 we bought a system with wireless detector units and a bedside unit which has a flasher and a vibrator to go under the pillow. The units all get paired with one another on a kind of wireless network. The one we had was a standard domestic product that happened to have flasher/vibrate units. I found the LED on the bedside flasher unit which controlled the vibrator unit obnoxiously bright, so we had to put tape over it to dim it (like many deaf people I'm hypersensitive to bright or flickering lights or LEDs).
We didn't like this system though cos we found that if one of the detectors fell off its wireless network, the unit by the bed would chirp and the LED would change colour and flash... Not very deaf-alerty. It woke my partner but didn't give helpful information like WHICH of the 5+ units was not connected.
We also found the battery life of the detector units was poor. They claimed average of 5 years but we weren't getting 2 on multiple units. When a unit failed, the unit would chirp and then all the others would chirp afterwards so it was hard to know which was the failed-chirp and which was an echo-chirp. this always happened in the middle of the night (when it got cold and the failing battery's voltage dropped). These chirping units did not keep any persistent-alert, so unless you could locate the sound of the failing unit by sound, you couldn't work out which unit didn't work properly.
Again, not deaf-safe. This was waking my partner (and by extension me) repeatedly night after night, as partner would be running round the house trying to hear which unit was fail-chirping amongst all the echo-chirping.
Super stressful and beyond useless. After spending too much money replacing units with poor battery life repeatedly we stopped using the system.
Geeky partner did a fire alerting that most people couldn't do
I'm lucky, my partner is an electronics and computer programming person. She bought a higher end commercial fire panel unit for a larger building and detector and other parts for this system with WIRES to detectors which have strobes in them. My partner used the strobe/vibrator unit from the old system and did the computer programming to wire and program the commercial fire system into our very home-brew alerting system (fail safe, so it runs without mains for a bit or if the alerting system goes down).
While it's not up to commercial standards and it cost about 2-3x the usual domestic deaf-friendly systems (especially the panel), it's a lot less stressful and much more reliable. It links to stuff like using our alerting system to make all our house lights come on at full brightness and we have bright blue LEDs and LED strips so it's "FIRE". The commercial system detectors are about 30% cheaper per unit than the previous system. All the detectors also have a strobe and our main alerting system has separate strobes everywhere including the bedroom. The bedroom strobes only go off for fire, nothing else. If there's an issue with any of the units, the central panel will display exactly which unit it has an issue with and it stays there till someone actively re-freshes it. We can turn off our house-alert strobes if a strobe-sensitive friend visits (or plonk something over the strober).
Not everyone can do this level of research, affording the system, wiring and programming.
Deaf friends had a different rubbish deafie fire alerting system in the 2000s
When I was a student, deaf friends of mine had a different domestic "deaf friendly" system to the one we had (and it was nearly 10 years earlier). Their system did wake them up, but it also false-alarmed so much that even after getting repairs it kept false alarming.
Eventually after several nights of poor sleep, one of them smashed the detectors and they "did without".
Portable deaf alert systems
There are portable deaf-fire-alarms which pick up the fire alarm sound and will trigger a strobe and or vibrator unit. These are common in hotels or university halls.
I haven't had good experiences with them though. I had to try one at a former job, it didn't go off in two separate buildings unless it was within 1m of the sounder - which rendered it useless. I know people who have used the unit I had in halls and it was also hypersensitive, going off with the noise of their shower in a small ensuite student room, even with the bathroom door closed which caused other issues.
In hotels, if you ask for the deaf alerter, more than 50% of the time the reception staff don't know what you are talking about. Or if they do give you the unit, there's no instructions and often it has no batteries or flat batteries in it. The unit I'm thinking of used C or D type of batteries which aren't always that easy to find in a hurry, say late at night when you arrive at a hotel. I don't bother anymore cos I just can't face the hassle cos it's hassle and anxiety in advance "will they have one that I've booked", will they force me into a disabled room which doesn't have a bath (I need a bath) and will that cost me extra? And or hassle and anxiety trying to hear a stranger to get the unit and or batteries who probably can't help cos the corporate system stinks. I can Google instructions.
Crap systems are often worse than no system
Systems that don't alert to faults in a deaf-aware way are dangerous - not all deaf people share houses with hearing people.
False alarming is dangerous, it trains people to ignore the danger signs.
Systems that are unreliable and or do not last as long as they claim are dangerous. It's too hard to complain all the time. Easier just not to bother. Maybe the system my friends and I had are better now, I don't know, we don't use them.
Anywhere that uses the portable deaf alerters are legally obliged to train staff on their use and make sure they work reliably in the environments they are used in. I should encourage deaf people to assert our rights. I haven't stayed alone in a hotel alone for over 1800 days (thanks Covid!) so it's not been a battle I needed to pick...
Workplace fire alerting - can be a battle
Workplaces can often put a strobing unit in the same place a fire alarm sounder goes, OR they can easily wire in another unit for a deaf person.
Unfortunately in 2014 the law changed so that in an open plan space, if one unit has a strober, they ALL have to have a strober, which can cause access-clashes for people sensitive to strobers (even tho they should be able to use a non epilepsy triggering frequency). This can cause issues in open plan spaces. I don't understand this law and feel it is yet another case of not coproducing with deaf people properly and just assuming we'll tolerate badness or suffer bad solutions.
Many larger employers want deaf people to have a pager that vibrates. I will not use one of these systems (see below) cos as well as bad experiences, they individualise the fire alerting to the deaf person. They create a burden of deaf-person remembering to have the pager on them, the deaf person remembering to charge it, the deaf person ensuring it doesn't fall down the loo etc.
Workplace systems that rely on another person are very bad and should not be used as routine. I know several deaf people who had a "buddy" who was then not in or forgot on the day the alarm went off, everyone evacuated and the deaf person did not realise until later. That's a horrible and dangerous situation!
I don't know what the answer to open plan non-pager alerting is as I haven't yet had to deal with it. I anticipate "unfun" cos I won't use a pager and employers will want me to use a pager.
Some of my experiences of workplace fire alerting
In one job where there were open plan with 200+ people on each floor, there was a brilliantly comprehensive fire system which worked really well - it was for anyone who couldn't evac typically, not just disabled but was significantly pregnant, injured etc. All by self-declaration. You were encouraged to self-declare for known reasons in advance and got shown round. The system was SO good a non disabled colleague who hurt his leg the day before, just used the refuge system cos he knew it was there was there was zero stigma and positive encouragement to use it.
Another job it took the employer over 5 years from disclosure to installing a working system. I had to give permission to ManagerTwit to share my deafness with 4 people but ManagerTwit who told those 4 people, told them "Natalya will contact you". When I arrived, I asked about fire alerting and no one knew who the 4 people were. ManagerTwit worked in a different building, everyone was scared of, or disliked them. I was given a fire-safety tour by EstatesTwit alongside 2 new starter colleagues, but I couldn't understand EstatesTwit's accent, he wouldn't speak up or slow down and we were walked at high speed round this unfamiliar building. I asked about the alarm sound and was told "It's really loud, you'll be fine". I explained how deaf I am and got told "the alarms are 60dB it's fine". I explained again I can't hear 60dB at any frequency without my hearing aid. I asked for a bell-test and this was just ignored and refused a lot.
I kept asking but the bad manager, HR and Estates all buckpassed and I was bullied repeatedly by HR for "not sorting it out" even when I showed proof of following their instructions to ask Estates. I got a nicer manager and they tried but they and their manager also got stonewalled and gaslighted at every turn.
The first time I heard the alarm, I thought it was Yet Another Pneumatic Drill outside the building. I only realised it was the fire alarm cos the colleague I happened to be talking to white with fear. We evacuated. The bell sound was actually better for most deafies as it was a lower frequency sound like a bell, not higher frequency like sirens tend to be. More deaf people have better lower than higher frequencies (especially cos age related deafness is usually higher frequencies first).
We had 3 actual fires in the building over the next few years, a few toast/oven burning incidents in the kitchen and then a faulty heater in someone's office. After the last incident I made a last ditch attempt to get something. The only option was to try a portable system, which didn't work...
I got really fed up and my nice local managers were equally flummoxed. So I wrote a threatening legal letter (effectively a Letter Before Action) to the director of Estates asking for an alarm within a month or I'd sue, tell the Health and Safety Executive and the local fire service. This threat letter worked well, I got prompt director of estates responses, apologies, requests for information to see where things had gone wrong and two men measuring up within 2 days. The flashing unit with sound was installed within 2 weeks and did work.
The installer guy was lovely, he let me listen to all the sound options to choose the best one. I later found out they got it through so quickly cos unlike every other purchase which requires purchase order number requests, layers of approvals and then whatevers, the Director told the frontline installers "Get It Done, paperwork later" and they had a flashing sounder ON THE SHELF...
Pagers and why I hate them
In another office, I couldn't have a wired in strober cos it was open plan and the law doesn't allow just 1 strober. I got told to have a vibrating pager... I went to collect a pager from the building reception. No battery in it. Awful confusing instructions. I happened to have batteries so I sorted that.
The pager went off with every single fire-alarm test in every single building across my employer's estate which had 30+ buildings. This involved vibrating alerts every morning for 2 hours at least. I left the pager on my desk when going to a half-day meeting, it buzzed and buzzed and buzzed. My colleagues eventually yoinked the battery.
Sources of deaf alertery things
I highly rate Connevans for deaf gadgets of all kinds including deaf friendly fire alerting. It looks like RNID wound down their shop and direct people to Connevans. https://www.connevans.co.uk/catalogue/11/Deaf-Equipment
If you are in employment, ask your estates department and if they don't help quickly, then try HR. If that doesn't work, write a complaint to the "Director of Estates" explaining your issue politely and asking for a fix within 4 weeks or you will complain to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Fire Service and raise a disability discrimination grievance. I have helped several people do this, especially after they've been forgotten during evacuations and it has worked every time.
I am deaf enough that without hearing aids, and while I'm asleep I won't hear a fire alarm, not even if it's really loud. I didn't have access to deaf-accessible fire alarms till I was nearly 30.
UK: Free fire alerting installations by fire or social services
In the UK often local fire services or social services will fit deaf-accessible fire alarm systems for free. In our case, the service was so unreliable and they kept not turning up (if there's a fire, the fire service will just not show up). So we bought our own.
I am not naming brands cos I don't want to get sued by some corporate whatevers.
Domestic deaf fire alerting systems in the 2000s and why ours sucked
In about 2009 we bought a system with wireless detector units and a bedside unit which has a flasher and a vibrator to go under the pillow. The units all get paired with one another on a kind of wireless network. The one we had was a standard domestic product that happened to have flasher/vibrate units. I found the LED on the bedside flasher unit which controlled the vibrator unit obnoxiously bright, so we had to put tape over it to dim it (like many deaf people I'm hypersensitive to bright or flickering lights or LEDs).
We didn't like this system though cos we found that if one of the detectors fell off its wireless network, the unit by the bed would chirp and the LED would change colour and flash... Not very deaf-alerty. It woke my partner but didn't give helpful information like WHICH of the 5+ units was not connected.
We also found the battery life of the detector units was poor. They claimed average of 5 years but we weren't getting 2 on multiple units. When a unit failed, the unit would chirp and then all the others would chirp afterwards so it was hard to know which was the failed-chirp and which was an echo-chirp. this always happened in the middle of the night (when it got cold and the failing battery's voltage dropped). These chirping units did not keep any persistent-alert, so unless you could locate the sound of the failing unit by sound, you couldn't work out which unit didn't work properly.
Again, not deaf-safe. This was waking my partner (and by extension me) repeatedly night after night, as partner would be running round the house trying to hear which unit was fail-chirping amongst all the echo-chirping.
Super stressful and beyond useless. After spending too much money replacing units with poor battery life repeatedly we stopped using the system.
Geeky partner did a fire alerting that most people couldn't do
I'm lucky, my partner is an electronics and computer programming person. She bought a higher end commercial fire panel unit for a larger building and detector and other parts for this system with WIRES to detectors which have strobes in them. My partner used the strobe/vibrator unit from the old system and did the computer programming to wire and program the commercial fire system into our very home-brew alerting system (fail safe, so it runs without mains for a bit or if the alerting system goes down).
While it's not up to commercial standards and it cost about 2-3x the usual domestic deaf-friendly systems (especially the panel), it's a lot less stressful and much more reliable. It links to stuff like using our alerting system to make all our house lights come on at full brightness and we have bright blue LEDs and LED strips so it's "FIRE". The commercial system detectors are about 30% cheaper per unit than the previous system. All the detectors also have a strobe and our main alerting system has separate strobes everywhere including the bedroom. The bedroom strobes only go off for fire, nothing else. If there's an issue with any of the units, the central panel will display exactly which unit it has an issue with and it stays there till someone actively re-freshes it. We can turn off our house-alert strobes if a strobe-sensitive friend visits (or plonk something over the strober).
Not everyone can do this level of research, affording the system, wiring and programming.
Deaf friends had a different rubbish deafie fire alerting system in the 2000s
When I was a student, deaf friends of mine had a different domestic "deaf friendly" system to the one we had (and it was nearly 10 years earlier). Their system did wake them up, but it also false-alarmed so much that even after getting repairs it kept false alarming.
Eventually after several nights of poor sleep, one of them smashed the detectors and they "did without".
Portable deaf alert systems
There are portable deaf-fire-alarms which pick up the fire alarm sound and will trigger a strobe and or vibrator unit. These are common in hotels or university halls.
I haven't had good experiences with them though. I had to try one at a former job, it didn't go off in two separate buildings unless it was within 1m of the sounder - which rendered it useless. I know people who have used the unit I had in halls and it was also hypersensitive, going off with the noise of their shower in a small ensuite student room, even with the bathroom door closed which caused other issues.
In hotels, if you ask for the deaf alerter, more than 50% of the time the reception staff don't know what you are talking about. Or if they do give you the unit, there's no instructions and often it has no batteries or flat batteries in it. The unit I'm thinking of used C or D type of batteries which aren't always that easy to find in a hurry, say late at night when you arrive at a hotel. I don't bother anymore cos I just can't face the hassle cos it's hassle and anxiety in advance "will they have one that I've booked", will they force me into a disabled room which doesn't have a bath (I need a bath) and will that cost me extra? And or hassle and anxiety trying to hear a stranger to get the unit and or batteries who probably can't help cos the corporate system stinks. I can Google instructions.
Crap systems are often worse than no system
Systems that don't alert to faults in a deaf-aware way are dangerous - not all deaf people share houses with hearing people.
False alarming is dangerous, it trains people to ignore the danger signs.
Systems that are unreliable and or do not last as long as they claim are dangerous. It's too hard to complain all the time. Easier just not to bother. Maybe the system my friends and I had are better now, I don't know, we don't use them.
Anywhere that uses the portable deaf alerters are legally obliged to train staff on their use and make sure they work reliably in the environments they are used in. I should encourage deaf people to assert our rights. I haven't stayed alone in a hotel alone for over 1800 days (thanks Covid!) so it's not been a battle I needed to pick...
Workplace fire alerting - can be a battle
Workplaces can often put a strobing unit in the same place a fire alarm sounder goes, OR they can easily wire in another unit for a deaf person.
Unfortunately in 2014 the law changed so that in an open plan space, if one unit has a strober, they ALL have to have a strober, which can cause access-clashes for people sensitive to strobers (even tho they should be able to use a non epilepsy triggering frequency). This can cause issues in open plan spaces. I don't understand this law and feel it is yet another case of not coproducing with deaf people properly and just assuming we'll tolerate badness or suffer bad solutions.
Many larger employers want deaf people to have a pager that vibrates. I will not use one of these systems (see below) cos as well as bad experiences, they individualise the fire alerting to the deaf person. They create a burden of deaf-person remembering to have the pager on them, the deaf person remembering to charge it, the deaf person ensuring it doesn't fall down the loo etc.
Workplace systems that rely on another person are very bad and should not be used as routine. I know several deaf people who had a "buddy" who was then not in or forgot on the day the alarm went off, everyone evacuated and the deaf person did not realise until later. That's a horrible and dangerous situation!
I don't know what the answer to open plan non-pager alerting is as I haven't yet had to deal with it. I anticipate "unfun" cos I won't use a pager and employers will want me to use a pager.
Some of my experiences of workplace fire alerting
In one job where there were open plan with 200+ people on each floor, there was a brilliantly comprehensive fire system which worked really well - it was for anyone who couldn't evac typically, not just disabled but was significantly pregnant, injured etc. All by self-declaration. You were encouraged to self-declare for known reasons in advance and got shown round. The system was SO good a non disabled colleague who hurt his leg the day before, just used the refuge system cos he knew it was there was there was zero stigma and positive encouragement to use it.
Another job it took the employer over 5 years from disclosure to installing a working system. I had to give permission to ManagerTwit to share my deafness with 4 people but ManagerTwit who told those 4 people, told them "Natalya will contact you". When I arrived, I asked about fire alerting and no one knew who the 4 people were. ManagerTwit worked in a different building, everyone was scared of, or disliked them. I was given a fire-safety tour by EstatesTwit alongside 2 new starter colleagues, but I couldn't understand EstatesTwit's accent, he wouldn't speak up or slow down and we were walked at high speed round this unfamiliar building. I asked about the alarm sound and was told "It's really loud, you'll be fine". I explained how deaf I am and got told "the alarms are 60dB it's fine". I explained again I can't hear 60dB at any frequency without my hearing aid. I asked for a bell-test and this was just ignored and refused a lot.
I kept asking but the bad manager, HR and Estates all buckpassed and I was bullied repeatedly by HR for "not sorting it out" even when I showed proof of following their instructions to ask Estates. I got a nicer manager and they tried but they and their manager also got stonewalled and gaslighted at every turn.
The first time I heard the alarm, I thought it was Yet Another Pneumatic Drill outside the building. I only realised it was the fire alarm cos the colleague I happened to be talking to white with fear. We evacuated. The bell sound was actually better for most deafies as it was a lower frequency sound like a bell, not higher frequency like sirens tend to be. More deaf people have better lower than higher frequencies (especially cos age related deafness is usually higher frequencies first).
We had 3 actual fires in the building over the next few years, a few toast/oven burning incidents in the kitchen and then a faulty heater in someone's office. After the last incident I made a last ditch attempt to get something. The only option was to try a portable system, which didn't work...
I got really fed up and my nice local managers were equally flummoxed. So I wrote a threatening legal letter (effectively a Letter Before Action) to the director of Estates asking for an alarm within a month or I'd sue, tell the Health and Safety Executive and the local fire service. This threat letter worked well, I got prompt director of estates responses, apologies, requests for information to see where things had gone wrong and two men measuring up within 2 days. The flashing unit with sound was installed within 2 weeks and did work.
The installer guy was lovely, he let me listen to all the sound options to choose the best one. I later found out they got it through so quickly cos unlike every other purchase which requires purchase order number requests, layers of approvals and then whatevers, the Director told the frontline installers "Get It Done, paperwork later" and they had a flashing sounder ON THE SHELF...
Pagers and why I hate them
In another office, I couldn't have a wired in strober cos it was open plan and the law doesn't allow just 1 strober. I got told to have a vibrating pager... I went to collect a pager from the building reception. No battery in it. Awful confusing instructions. I happened to have batteries so I sorted that.
The pager went off with every single fire-alarm test in every single building across my employer's estate which had 30+ buildings. This involved vibrating alerts every morning for 2 hours at least. I left the pager on my desk when going to a half-day meeting, it buzzed and buzzed and buzzed. My colleagues eventually yoinked the battery.
Sources of deaf alertery things
I highly rate Connevans for deaf gadgets of all kinds including deaf friendly fire alerting. It looks like RNID wound down their shop and direct people to Connevans. https://www.connevans.co.uk/catalogue/11/Deaf-Equipment
If you are in employment, ask your estates department and if they don't help quickly, then try HR. If that doesn't work, write a complaint to the "Director of Estates" explaining your issue politely and asking for a fix within 4 weeks or you will complain to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Fire Service and raise a disability discrimination grievance. I have helped several people do this, especially after they've been forgotten during evacuations and it has worked every time.
