Can Vapes be Detected?

Vapes may be vastly preferable to tobacco, but it still doesn’t mean that you want your environment full of the ‘smoke’ they produce. 

Many commercial premises ban vaping for the comfort of others present, while vaping is also not allowed in most schools and colleges – not least because it’s actually illegal to sell vapes to anyone under 18.

If you’re keen to prevent people in your commercial premises from vaping, you may be thinking that your existing fire alarm system has it covered – after all, aren’t they set up to detect the presence of smoke? Unfortunately, it’s not that straightforward, not least because vapes don’t actually produce smoke – they produce a vapour (hence the name!). 

Of course, looking at it from another angle – do you really want your smoke detectors to go off every time someone vapes? You may be quite happy for people to vape in your building, but you don’t necessarily want to trigger a full-scale evacuation every time it happens!

In this article, we’re going to explore how current smoke detectors can but generally don’t detect the presence of vaping – and why you’ll soon be able to install reliable detectors that do.

Do smoke detectors detect vapes?

There are three common types of detectors used to identify the heat and/or smoke that indicate a possible fire. One of these (heat alarms) doesn’t detect vaping, while the other two (ionisation and optical alarms) can – but only in large quantities and when it’s exhaled very close to the detector.

• Heat alarms – as the name suggests, these are intended to pick up on excess heat and so are of no use when it comes to vape detection.
• Ionisation detectors – these are sensitive to particles of smoke. In theory, vapes should have no effect, because – as we mentioned earlier – they don’t produce smoke. Nevertheless, it has been known for vapes to set one of these off. That means they can’t be relied on – either to pick up on vaping or ignore it, depending on your preference.
• Optical alarms – the most common type of detector, these are triggered by smoke entering and disturbing a beam of infrared light. These have been shown to be the most sensitive to vaping, but again not to an extent that is reliably helpful.

In cases where a vape can set off a smoke detector, there generally seems to need to be quite a lot of vapour and it will have to be exhaled close to the detector. So, unless those vaping at your premises all get together and deliberately try to cause you a problem, chances are you generally shouldn’t need to worry about vapes setting off your alarm.

But what can you do if you actively want to prevent people from vaping at your premises?

Our new vape detection solution

If you want to be able to reliably identify the presence of rogue vapers, our new vape detection alarms could be just what you need. They are highly sensitive to vape emissions but won’t be triggered by other contaminants in the air. That makes them a reliable solution that will only deliver genuine alerts without time-wasting false alarms.

And when your vape smoke alarm detects signs of vaping, it merely sends an alert to your phone, so you can investigate and deal with the issue quietly without raising the levels of panic that a loud alarm might generate.

That makes them a practical solution to dealing with vaping on your premises, while also being a great visual deterrent to those thinking about breaking your site rules.

Find out more about vape smoke detectors and other fire safety and security products and services available from Scutum South East by getting in touch with us today.