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Smoke alarms in your own home before 1 January 2027
Every Queensland home needs interconnected photoelectric alarms by January - including the one you live in. What yours needs, what it costs, and when doing it yourself is the right answer.
What actually changes for you
If you own the house you live in, you have until 1 January 2027. After that every home in Queensland — not just rentals and not just houses being sold — needs interconnected photoelectric smoke alarms that meet AS 3786:2014. Yours probably has neither.
Three words do the work in that sentence. Photoelectric means it senses smouldering smoke rather than flame, which is what kills people in house fires at three in the morning. The older ionisation type is no longer acceptable at all. Interconnected means when one goes off, they all go off — so an alarm in the back bedroom wakes you at the front of the house. AS 3786:2014 is the standard they have to be built to, and it is printed on the unit.
Landlords have had to do this since 2022, and anyone selling a house has to do it before settlement. Owner-occupiers were given until 2027. That is the only difference — the requirement itself is the same.
How many alarms your house needs
One in every bedroom. One in the hallway that connects those bedrooms to the rest of the house — or, if there is no hallway, one between the bedrooms and the rest of that level. And at least one on every storey, even a storey with no bedrooms on it, in the path you would take to get out.
| Your house | Alarms needed | How that adds up |
|---|---|---|
| 3 bed, single storey | 4 | 3 bedrooms + 1 hallway |
| 4 bed, single storey | 5 | 4 bedrooms + 1 hallway |
| 4 bed, two storey | 6 | 4 bedrooms + 1 hallway + 1 downstairs |
| 5 bed, two storey | 7 | 5 bedrooms + 1 hallway + 1 downstairs |
Walk your own house and count the bedrooms, then add a hallway alarm for each level that has bedrooms on it, then check every other storey has one. That number is almost always right. Odd layouts — a converted garage, two separate hallway runs, a bedroom opening straight onto the living room — are worth a look rather than a guess.
Check the date on the back before you do anything
Smoke alarms expire. Queensland requires them replaced within ten years of the date they were manufactured, and that date is printed on the back of the unit. Take one down and look at it. If it says 2016 or earlier, it is already past its life regardless of the 2027 deadline — and if it is an ionisation alarm, it needs replacing whatever the date says.
What it costs
No GST, no call-out fee, no hourly rate to argue about afterwards. The full breakdown, including what is in the box, is on the prices page.
You can do this yourself, and some of you should
I would rather say this plainly than sell you something you do not need. Sealed ten-year photoelectric alarms with wireless interconnect are sold retail. They stick or screw to the ceiling, there is no wiring, and pairing them is a matter of holding a button. If you are reasonably handy and you own the place, buying a six-pack and spending a Saturday on it is a perfectly sensible thing to do.
Two things people get wrong. The first is placement — the regulation is specific about hallways and storeys, and alarms too close to a ceiling fan, an air conditioning vent or a bathroom door will either nuisance-trip or miss smoke. The second is buying the wrong thing: plenty of cheap alarms on the shelf are not photoelectric, not interconnectable, or not AS 3786:2014. Read the box, not the price tag.
When you cannot do it yourself
If your existing alarms are hardwired into the mains — 240V, usually with a small backup battery, often found in anything built since the early 2000s — replacing them is licensed electrical work. That is not me being cautious; it is the law, and it is not a job for a homeowner or for me on my own. I bring in the electrician I work with and you get one quote with his work as its own line.
In most houses I will price the wireless option alongside it anyway, because it is usually cheaper and means nobody is cutting into your ceilings.
Why not leave it until next December
Because everyone else will. There are hundreds of thousands of Queensland homes that need this done and a finite number of people to do it. The closer it gets to January 2027 the harder it becomes to book anyone, and alarms themselves get thin on the shelf when demand spikes.
There is also the obvious point, which has nothing to do with deadlines: the alarm that wakes you up is worth having tonight rather than in fourteen months.
What you get from me
- Sealed ten-year photoelectric alarms, wirelessly interconnected, AS 3786:2014
- Fitted in the right places for your layout, with nothing cut into your ceilings
- Every unit tested, including the interconnection between them
- A dated record with a photograph of each alarm in place and its expiry visible — worth keeping for insurance, and for the day you sell
Where I work
Based in Morayfield, across Moreton Bay and Brisbane's north — Morayfield, Caboolture, Burpengary, North Lakes and Redcliffe among others. Ring and tell me how many bedrooms and how many storeys and I will give you the number on the phone.
Not sure where you stand?
Ring or send a text with your address and how many bedrooms. I'll tell you straight what your place needs, what it costs, and whether it's worth doing before January.