Cottsway Housing is using hush buttons to help tackle false alarms in sheltered housing blocks

A housing association has installed C-TEC’s hush buttons to its sheltered block of flats allowing residents to silence false alarms.

The buttons are being used by Cottsway Housing Association (CHA), in West Oxfordshire, at its sites that do not have wardens or staff on-site 24 hours a day.

Hush buttons mean residents can silence false alarms themselves should they set the devices off accidentally, which can then lead to unnecessary building evacuations and fire service call outs.

Colin Walker, CHA fire safety officer, said: “We installed hush buttons as part of the fire alarm upgrades within our sheltered blocks of flats which do not have wardens or staff on-site 24 hours a day.

"At some flats there was real complacency that if the fire alarm sounded it was because someone had burnt the toast. C-TEC’s hush buttons have eradicated false alarms and restored confidence in the fire alarm system.”

The buttons have been designed to work with Apollo XP95 or Hochiki ESP analogue addressable fire alarm systems.