The most common reason people disable domestic fire detection is a detector in or beside a kitchen that sounds every time somebody cooks. The device is not faulty. It is doing exactly what it was designed to do, and it is in the wrong place. The fix is a different device in the kitchen and a correctly sited one outside it.
Why smoke detection fails there
Frying, grilling and toasting produce exactly the airborne particles an optical or ionisation chamber is looking for. Steam does the same to an optical device. A detector in a kitchen will therefore alarm during normal cooking, and the occupant will eventually take the battery out or take the unit down, at which point the whole dwelling has lost its detection because of one badly placed device.
What to fit in the kitchen
A heat alarm. It ignores smoke and steam entirely and responds to a rise in temperature, which a real kitchen fire produces quickly. It is a slower warning than smoke detection and that is the accepted trade, because the alternative is no working detection at all. It should be interlinked with the rest of the alarms so that a kitchen fire wakes the household.
What to fit outside it
An optical smoke alarm in the adjoining circulation space, sited far enough from the kitchen door that cooking fumes have dispersed before reaching it. Manufacturers state a minimum distance and it is worth respecting; where the layout will not allow it, a multi sensor is the compromise that usually works.
Open plan kitchens
An open plan kitchen and living space removes the door that would otherwise contain the fumes, and it is the layout where this problem is hardest. The usual answer is a heat alarm over the cooking area and a multi sensor at the far end of the space, and in some designs additional measures because open plan layouts also remove the protected escape route.
Questions people ask about kitchen smoke alarm
Can a smoke alarm go in a kitchen at all?
It will alarm during normal cooking, so in practice no. A heat alarm is the kitchen device and the smoke alarm goes outside the kitchen.
What about a kitchen in a rented flat?
Provision requirements apply per storey and the detector type is a design question. A heat alarm in the kitchen interlinked with smoke alarms elsewhere satisfies both the rules and the occupants.
Is it acceptable to move a detector rather than change it?
Moving it further from the kitchen helps and is often not enough on its own. The kitchen still needs its own heat alarm.