When you’re at home it’s no big deal if you accidentally trigger your smoke detector but when you do this in a public space or someone else’s house you can find yourself on the wrong end of a pretty stiff fine. You can even find yourself being banned from a venue or hotel. This is because you’re tampering with fire alarms and it’s illegal to do so in most places.
Smoke vape fire alarm are designed to detect smoke but they can also be triggered by changes to light beams, particle density and ionisation. As e-cigs only produce vapour not smoke it should be obvious that they wouldn’t cause the alarm to go off but unfortunately, that isn’t always the case.
Vaping and Fire Alarms: Understanding the Potential Triggers and How to Stay Safe
The most common type of smoke detector is the ionisation-based one, which you’re likely to encounter in most public indoor spaces and homes. They ionise the air in a chamber between two electrically charged metal plates and monitor this current – should smoke or anything perceived as being denser than the ionised air pass through, it interrupts the flow of electricity and triggers the alarm.
Another type of smoke detector that is less prone to triggering by vaping is the heat-based one, which you’ll typically find in kitchens and isn’t easily triggered by changes to light beams or particles, so vaping should be fine around these. However, it’s still best to choose a room with good ventilation so that the vapor doesn’t linger. Also, vaping at lower temperatures produces thinner vapor that is less likely to set off a fire alarm.