How often should a fire alarm be tested? The BS 5839-1 schedule explained

If you are the person responsible for a workplace, the short answer is: a weekly test done by you, a service visit at least every six months done by a competent engineer, and a record of both in a log book that the fire officer can open. The longer answer, with the reasons, is below.

Where the rules come from

The legal duty is in the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which requires the responsible person for non-domestic premises to keep fire detection and alarm equipment "in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair". The Order does not say how. The code of practice that says how is BS 5839-1, and a fire officer, an insurer or a court will take BS 5839-1 as the measure of whether you have done enough.

The weekly test

Once a week, at about the same time, somebody at the premises operates a manual call point and checks that the panel registers the alarm and the sounders operate. A different call point is used each week so that every one is tested in rotation, and the test is logged: the date, the call point used, and anything that was wrong. The point of the weekly test is not to find a dead detector; it is to confirm that the system as a whole still works and that the people in the building still recognise the sound. It takes two minutes and it is done with a test key, and most premises do it on the same morning each week so that staff know the noise is a test.

On a system that is monitored by an alarm receiving centre, tell the centre before the test, or put the panel in test mode, or the fire service may arrive.

The six-monthly service

BS 5839-1 recommends that the system is inspected and serviced by a competent person at intervals of no more than six months. At each visit the engineer:

• reads the log book and looks into anything recorded since the last visit;
• checks the panel, the batteries and the standby supply, and the charger;
• tests a proportion of the detectors, call points and sounders so that every device is tested at least once over the year (so half of them at each of two visits, or all of them at one);
• checks the cause-and-effect: that the doors release, the ventilation stops, the lifts ground and the monitoring signal goes out as the design says;
• looks for changes to the building since the last visit that the system no longer covers: a new partition, a new room, a store that has become an office;
• records the visit, the results and any defects in the log book and in a report.

A system that is heavily used or in a demanding environment may need more frequent visits; the standard allows the interval to be set by a risk assessment, but six months is the normal maximum.

The annual test

There is no separate "annual test" in BS 5839-1 as such; the requirement is that every device has been tested within the year, which a six-monthly regime achieves. What people call the annual test is usually the second six-monthly visit, at which the engineer completes the year's device testing and issues an inspection and servicing certificate.

What goes in the log book

Everything: the weekly tests, the service visits, every alarm (real or false) and its cause, every fault and what was done about it, every period the system was disabled and why, and every change to the system. A log book that is complete is the easiest piece of evidence you will ever produce for a fire officer. One with gaps is a conversation you do not want to have after a fire.

False alarms

If the system false-alarms more than once in a while, something is wrong: a detector in the wrong place, a detector of the wrong type for the room, dust, steam, an aerosol, or an ageing head. The standard expects false alarms to be investigated and the cause removed, not the detector silenced. Repeated false alarms also cost you the attention of your staff, who stop evacuating when the alarm goes off.

What a fire officer looks for

The log book, the last service report, the commissioning certificate for the system, evidence that the category of the system matches the fire risk assessment, and, by walking around, that the detection still covers the building as it is used today. If you can hand over those four documents and the building has not changed since the system was designed, the visit is short.

What we do

We provide the six-monthly visits, test every device across the year, keep the log book in order and write to you before each visit falls due. If you would rather we did the weekly test as well on a site we are at anyway, ask. Details on our fire alarm page.