Chubb Fire Extinguishers - Can they be purchased?

[tacpot]

My employer uses exclusively Chubb fire extinguishers across all our sites. One in an office I'm responsible for has gone missing. I've asked repeatedly (for the past three months) for it to be replaced, but our Facilites department seem incapable of doing so. They keep saying we will sort it out, but never do.

I've given in and decided I need to purchase one myself. I've looked on the 'net can can't find anywhere in the UK selling Chubb Fire Extinguishers. It needs to be a Chubb Fire Extinguisher otherwise Facilities will get their hair off, plus I intend to charge the company for it!

Any ideas where I can purchase one other than Chubb? (Missing item is a 6litre AFFF)

ta

tacpot

[kurnal]

There will be a service chart on other extinguishers on the site. This should have the contact number on it.

[messy]

Any ideas where I can purchase one other than Chubb? (Missing item is a 6litre AFFF)

ta

tacpot

Err... Did you think of Google???

Type 'AFFF Extinguisher' and you get 12,000 possibles from the UK search alone

or

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=afff+extinguisher&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryUK%7CcountryGB

[Exact Fire Services]

We are a fire extinguisher service and supply company called Exact Fire Services Limited. We are based in the Midlands and Southern England. All service personnel are BAFE / FETA trained and certified.
I can supply you with a 6L AFFF that is fully serviced and certified for use - something you may not get buy buying off the www. The price would be dependent upon where you are in the Country with postage, or if you were nearby we can deiver.

I hope you have a CO2 extinguisher in the office as you would not want to use an AFFF on electrics / computers.

Give me a call on 07506 373522.

Stuart

[fireftrm]

Chubb sellt heir extinguishers through the trade too, via a subsidiary Thomas Glover. I know a company that can provide these, however you presumably have a service contract with someone, no doubt Chubb? If unsure look at the serive label on any other extinguisher and then ring that number. They will be able to source the replacement for you and invoice the company. In fact,as it is at least 3 months that the ext has been missing, they may be close to due to visit for the annual service anyway. I trust you have investigated the loss of the appliance and made clear the very serious nature of tampering/damaging/stealing company property and that fire safety equipment means that such an act is also criminally illegal under HASAW?

[AnthonyB]

Only Chubb sell Chubb branded extinguishers, which are an exclusive design to them. You must go direct to Chubb to get an identical replacement - however, you may find the price very high (£150 sort of area) if you are buying independantly - national & government contracts will get a more preferable rate, if you are a large concern you need to get your account details to get the cheaper rate (unless of course they pay top price - many large customers still pay list price).

Chubb own a trade subsidiary Thomas Glover, used by many independent fire protection companies & websites, where a kitemarked equivalent is available, but it is a slightly different design (identical fire fighting capacity though). Also Homesaver's FireChief brand is simply relabelled Thomas Glover extinguishers (they didn't used to be, suggesting that like the long defunct Allied Safety they have been bought out by UTC, Chubb/TG' global parent).

Waiting for the annual service is an option, but nationals suffer from poor facilities depts as missing, condemned & out of test extinguishers can often remain in place for some time whilst Chubb await approval to replace. This isn't helped by Chubb engineers not pointing out to each site's manager when they have condemned extinguishers so there is no one to 'push' facilities to hurry up with the approvals.

If you just want an extinguisher quickly you will find multiple suppliers who are far far cheaper than Chubb's list price in the Yellow Pages and web (Staples & Makro now sell a range of TG extinguishers too), but if it must be a genuine Chubb EF6, then it's Chubb you must go to

[pugh]

Have you considered reporting this matter to the company HSE manager via your incident reporting system (it is reportable as an unsafe condition)?  This is a prima-facie contravention of your FRA and should be dealt with as a priority.  Your facilities management group obviously do not realise the significance of the missing equipment and need a strategically placed boot to motivate them.

[tacpot]

Thank you all very much for the suggestions. We have one remaining extinguisher, so I could consult the Service Label on it. I'm visiting Head Office today by coincidence, so I'm going to call in on them and see if a face-to-face discussion doesn't clear the blockage. If it doesn't, I'll also have a go at reporting the incident via the Health & Safety Manager.

We have investigated what happened to it, but turned up a blank; the permanent staff know that the Fire Safety Equipment mustn't be tampered with, and they are all very responsible people, so I don't think it's them.
 
thinking about this some more, I realised I also have some other routes I can try, e.g.  via the Purchasing system; I can potentially find orders that the Facilities dept have placed themselves, and just order one of the same item from Chubb. The system will even let me bill the Facilites dept's Cost Centre!

BTW: We have CO2 extinguishers for the electrical equipment.

Again, thank you all.

tp

[kurnal]

It ALWAYS pays to shop around, its a bit like car insurance or any other industry. There are literally thousands of pounds to be saved by doing so. So if you go about it in the right way Facilities may indeed thank you- its usually lethargy and other competing  priorities that make them stick with one supplier, until they know what its costing them.
If you present your case clearly to Facilities- you could take a look at prices charged by others, eg the the sponsors of this site or any BAFE accredited company, and put a report together, showing that the alternative  extinguishers are to the same standard ( look for something of decent quality- such as TG or Gloria)   conform to BSEN3, and check maintenance options- some do it on a fixed fully inclusive price per unit per year, others charge a small annual inspection fee and for parts and recharges as they go. Fully inclusive is better for larger customers in my opinion.

Huge savings can be made- eg a small carpet shop saved £640 per year by buying rather than renting from a multinational, a medium warehouse is changing supplier and saving £5000.

[Exact Fire Services]

AnthonyB....I posted earler to try to help with this problem. Just like to add that at Exact Fire Services we do not charge anywhere near £150 for a 6L AFFF. We would normally be about a quarter of that price for an extinguisher that complies with BS-EN3, is Kite Marked and comes with a 5 year guarantee. But I do know of people charging in excess of £100 for water and foam extinguishers.

[AnthonyB]

Just to clear up any confusion (due to my bad phrasing & grammar) when I said you pay £150 for an extinguisher if you buy indpendantly I meant if you go to Chubb 'off the street' and buy outside of any particular special contract (such as through Government Procurement contracts where I can get them for £27!).

With respect to Independent Fire Protection companies (e.g. those not part of UTC Group, Williams Corp, Nu Swift/European Fire, etc) then you will get a far better deal (most of the time) but for purchase only you cannot beat the online sales only sites who will supply kite-marked stuff at very low cost - but make sure they supply them with an initial service & labelling to such effect

[Goodsparks]

(such as through Government Procurement contracts where I can get them for £27!).

Theres still scope for negotiation there too, I`m only paying £26 for the Stainless 6L Afff and a couple of quid more for the polished 2kg c02.

Paul

[kurnal]

And I am paying inflated prices to subsidise the Government contracts. And the Politiicians criticise the supermarkets for distorting the market.