9 Awesome Tips About Fire Watch Services From Unlikely Websites

While emergency evacuation drills are good practice in fire safety and a key part of staff training, false alarms can simply be a waste of everyone's time. Not least for the emergency services, who may be called out for no reason if your alarm system is automated. We should all do what we can to ensure that the Fire Services are free to deal with real emergencies.

If false alarms occur frequently, they can have a real and disruptive effect upon your business and productivity. The additional negative impact can be that if you have too many false alarms, the Fire Services will not respond without having a specific manual request. Which is not great news if you ever have a real fire.

A false alarm can be a symptom of a fault on your system, so they should never be ignored. If you cannot find the cause of an alarm activation, it is always best to call in an engineer to investigate the problem. The final thing you'll need is for the exact same thing to happen a day or two later as a result of same small fault. Even worse, it could be a signal that an element of the alarm just isn't properly functioning, which could have a serious impact in the event of a real Fire Watch Services, allowing the fire to spread far more than it otherwise might.

Many false alarms are brought on by people in the building not being aware that a fire alarm system is in place, or at least not comprehending the kinds of thing that can activate the fire alarm. You may cope with these by way of a few simple procedures:

Ensure staff and visitors know that your building is protected by an automatic fire alarm system

Make these facts part of your induction training and fire safety training for all staff.

Have prominent notices up at all main entrances to your place of work. Use the following wording: "These premises are protected by an automatic fire alarm system. Please obtain permission from the site manager before undertaking any work involving flame, smoke, heat or sparks."

Make certain that no-one carries out any 'hot works' without permission from the Health and Safety Representative, fire Marshall, or whoever has responsibility for authorising such works

Staff need to understand that any work involving flame, smoke, heat or sparks must have special permission.

Build this into staff training and ensure it is included in staff manuals, operating plans, etc.

Have a Hot Works Permit system or similar mechanism to make certain that contractors working on site follow your safe working procedures.

Build this requirement into contracts with any contractors which will undertake work on the premises.

Make certain that no work involving the generation of dust or even the utilization of spray paint is done within an area with smoke detectors in, unless the detectors are properly protected.

Make sure that somebody has specific personal responsibility for going through this as well as similar matters.

If possible, smoke detectors can be replaced with heat detectors, but only by an experienced engineer.

The alternative to swapping to heat detectors is to cover and protect the smoke detectors through the period of work (with paper, plastic, etc).

This should not be done lightly, as covered smoke detectors will clearly not work correctly, if at all, within the event of a real fire.

The specific situation should be risk assessed, and alternative means of detection put in place (for example someone in the area with specific fire-watching brief during the period of works).

Ensure in which somebody has the specific personal responsibility for removing the covering from the detectors when the work is finished. It is vital that this really is done promptly so that the alarm system is fully functional straight away.

Ensure that the fire alarm system is tested once the work is completed, to guarantee that it really is functioning correctly.