With the introduction of the new British Standards Institution (BSI) Code of Practice for Fire Alarm Systems – BS 5839-1:2002 – and the withdrawal of the previous Code on 15 July this year, questions have been raised regarding what maintenance requirements need to be adhered to by security managers in charge of fire protection and prevention matters.
To clarify the situation, the BSI Committee responsible for the new Code has issued some timely advice. In general, new British Standards aren’t retrospective. In this case, for example, there’s no suggestion that existing fire detection and fire alarm systems need to be upgraded to satisfy the recommendations of Sections 2 or 4 of BS 5839-1:2002.
However, a somewhat different situation applies in respect of Section 6, which concentrates on system maintenance. When BS 5839-1:1988 was withdrawn in July, most end users would have had in place contracts for routine servicing of their systems in accordance with the recommendations of the same British Standard. Pragmatically, at least, it would seem unreasonable to expect these users to request that the servicing organisation modify their existing contract from 15 July this year (such that the system would, for the remainder of the contract, be serviced in accordance of the recommendations laid down in Section 6 of BS 5839-1:1988).
Changes to maintenance
On the other hand, when these existing maintenance contracts are renewed, BS 5839-1:1988 will no longer be a current British Standard with which duties under the new maintenance contract could comply.
Accordingly, it’s reasonable to expect duties under new maintenance deals to reflect the recommendations of Section 6 of BS 5839-1:2002. Such duties could be more or less onerous than those necessary for compliance with BS 5839-1:1988.
For example, the 2002 Code is much more definitive regarding the need for functional testing of all detectors. However, subject to a risk assessment by the user, under the 2002 Code end users need only arrange for six-monthly servicing of systems, whereas quarterly servicing would have been necessary under the 1988 Code.
A major benefit to end users – not to mention the local fire brigade – from servicing existing systems in accordance with the new Code relates to false alarms. Under the 1988 Code, there was no specific need for the service technician to examine the false alarm records for the system, nor to consider measures for limiting false alarms. The responsibility lay with the user to act unilaterally in requesting an investigation by the servicing organisation if repeated false alarms occurred.
The Code recommended that the user arranged for a special investigation if the average rate of false alarms from an installation exceeded one false alarm per ten detectors per annum. In practice, users were rarely even aware of this recommendation, and such special investigations were, therefore, extremely rare.
The partnership approach
The 2002 Code takes a rather different approach which might be regarded as a form f ‘partnership’ between the servicing organisation and the user to monitor false alarm rates, and to ensure appropriate action if those rates happen to be unduly high. Therefore, the end user is expected to keep quite separate detailed records of false alarms for examination by the service technician.
For their part, service technicians are expected to record on every service certificate the total number of false alarms logged over the previous 12 months, and in addition to further record the number of false alarms as a rate of false alarms per 100 automatic fire detectors per annum.
Also, as part of servicing the fire alarm system in accordance with the 2002 Code, your service technician will be required to carry out a preliminary investigation (at the very least) if any of the following circumstances prevail:
The end user is then informed of the outcome of this preliminary investigation and given appropriate advice, including that regarding the need for a more in-depth investigation. Thus, it can be expected that specific action will now be taken in respect of relatively high false alarm rates in existing systems of whatever age.
It remains something of a grey area as to what might reasonably be expected with regard to long term maintenance contracts (such as those of either three or five years’ duration). It would be prudent for security managers to renegotiate such contracts and reflect upon the recommendations of the 2002 Code at a suitable discontinuity in their present service contract (such as the modification of rates during the term of the contract).
