A fire alarm has one job: to tell everyone in the building, early enough, that they need to leave. Everything about how we design, install and look after one follows from that. We work on fire detection and alarm systems for offices, clinics, hotels and restaurants, industrial units, schools and blocks of flats across Birmingham and the West Midlands, from a single-panel conventional system to a networked addressable system across several buildings.
What we do
- Design to the category your fire risk assessment calls for, under BS 5839-1: M, L1 to L5 for life safety, P1 and P2 for property. The design shows every device on a drawing before anything is ordered.
- Installation of conventional and addressable systems: panels, detectors, call points, sounders and beacons, interfaces to doors, lifts, ventilation and access control, and the fire-rated cabling between them.
- Commissioning: every device tested, the cause-and-effect checked, the panel programmed and labelled, and the commissioning certificate issued.
- Servicing: the six-monthly inspection and the device testing BS 5839-1 recommends, with the log book kept up to date and a report after each visit.
- Extensions and upgrades: adding a floor or a building to an existing system, replacing an obsolete panel, moving from conventional to addressable while the old system stays live.
- Monitoring: connection to an alarm receiving centre, so that an alarm or a fault out of hours reaches a keyholder.
- Fault repair: a panel in fault, a detector that keeps going off, a sounder circuit that has gone open: found and fixed, not silenced.
How the work runs
The category comes from your fire risk assessment, which the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires the responsible person to have. We read it before the visit. On site we walk the building with it, note the rooms and the escape routes, and check what is already there. The quotation names the category, the panel, the number and type of devices, the cabling and the interfaces, and it says what will happen to the old system while the new one goes in.
On an occupied building the new loops are run and the new devices fitted while the existing system stays live, and the changeover is done in one planned visit, so the building is never without detection. Commissioning is done device by device, the cause-and-effect matrix is tested against the fire strategy, and the handover includes the certificate, the drawings, the zone chart for the panel and a log book with the first weekly test already in it.
After it is installed
BS 5839-1 recommends that a competent person inspects and services the system at least every six months, that every device is tested at least once a year, and that the premises tests a call point every week, a different one each time, and records it. We provide the six-monthly visits, test the devices across the year, leave the log book in order and write to you before each visit falls due. If you would rather we did the weekly test on a site we visit anyway, say so.
Standards and equipment
Our systems are designed, installed and maintained to BS 5839-1 for non-domestic premises and BS 5839-6 in the residential parts of a mixed building, under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. We install C-TEC conventional and addressable panels and devices on most of our commercial systems; they are made in the UK, well supported and straightforward to extend. In flats, HMOs and the residential parts of a mixed building we install Aico interlinked smoke, heat and CO alarms, as an Aico Expert Installer. Where an existing system or a client's specification calls for another manufacturer, we work with that.
Who this is for
Any workplace or building where people sleep, work or gather: clinics and dental practices, hotels, restaurants and bars, offices, factories and warehouses and flats and HMOs. If you are unsure what category your building needs, start with the fire risk assessment; if you do not have one, we can tell you who to ask.