CO-Gas Safety publishes warning about faulty smoke and carbon monoxide alarms

CO-Gas Safety, an independent organisation, posted a warning about faulty smoke and carbon monoxide alarms on its website on 21 November 2025¹. The post is titled "Warning about faulty smoke and carbon monoxide alarms" and is filed under news¹.

The page itself carries little beyond its title and a link to an external news article headed "Britons urged to check their homes for faulty alarm that presents a 'serious' risk"¹. The warning does not name a make or model of alarm, does not say how many alarms or households are affected, and does not set out which fault is involved; none of these details has been reported on the page¹. It also gives no date for when any check should be carried out¹.

Why it matters for households

Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms are the first warning many households get of a fire or of carbon monoxide, a gas that has no colour, taste or smell. A faulty alarm may fail to sound, which means the protection a household is relying on may not be there when it is needed. The CO-Gas Safety post urges people in Britain to check their homes for a faulty alarm that it describes as presenting a serious risk¹. The post does not say which alarms are affected, so households cannot tell from it alone whether their own alarms fall within the warning¹.

Guidance on choosing and maintaining alarms is set out in the site's pages on carbon monoxide alarms and on whether you need a CO alarm, with further material on where to put a carbon monoxide alarm and on combined or separate smoke and CO alarms. The home emergencies hub collects the wider household guidance.

For anyone whose alarm is sounding without cause, the site explains why a carbon monoxide alarm may be beeping and how to stop smoke alarm false alarms. Symptoms of carbon monoxide exposure are described in the page on carbon monoxide poisoning symptoms, and the question of whether a CO alarm can detect a gas leak is covered separately in Can a Carbon Monoxide Alarm Detect a Gas Leak?. Households with residents who are deaf or hard of hearing can read about smoke and CO alarms for deaf and hard of hearing people, and those weighing up power options can compare battery or mains smoke alarms.

What happens next

No further steps have been announced. CO-Gas Safety has not said on the page whether it will publish details of affected alarms, issue an update, or pass information to any other body, and no recall or safety notice has been reported there¹. Households wanting the specifics of the fault will need to follow the link from the CO-Gas Safety post to the external article it cites¹.