Fire alarm maintenance in schools during school hours.

[CALTEX]

Is there any hard and fast ruling covering routine fire alarm maintenance during school hours?
For example, if you carry out testing with sounders diabled in a bulding occupied by children, this effectively
leaves the premises without a means of evacuation. If possible I carry out a "walk test by zone" so that only
the part of the building being tested is left without protection, but this is rarely possible due to lack of zone info etc. If I disable a fire system with the building fully occupied are any H&S rule breached?
(All universities on our client list will not allow any disablements or testing during occupied hours.)

[wee brian]

No hard and fast rules

I doubt it makes much difference but it will depnd on the particular school. - risk assessment

[Mike Buckley]

The other proviso should be that all the staff have been informed and an alternative plan is available. This could just be a hand bell and an instruction for someone to phone reception to inform them of the fire.

It comes down to the reasonable practicable bit, if it is not practical to carry out the test whilst the school is unoccupied then alternative arrangements should be made.

[wee brian]

Lets face it - who in their right mind wants to work anywhere near teenagers - i'd want danger money

[Andy Gwatkin]

I look after schools and Uni,s as a Fire safety reference which covers 10 local education authorities ,not come across this issue before, as long as the premise follows the points mentioned above ,then i wouldn,t have a problem with it.I,d be grateful the fact that the system is being looked at,the end of the day you have to reasonable about the whole situation and that we cannot expect FA companies to work at weekends and at night time only

[Chris Houston]

I,d be grateful the fact that the system is being looked at

What do you mean by this, it is a legal obligation that it is more than "looked at"?

[Andy Gwatkin]

I understand the protocol for the maintenance of FA systems fully,the comment was  a bit tongue in cheek !!  have you not come across a company that hasn,t carried out any maintenance at all on a FA system

[Chris Houston]

I still don't know what you mean.  Are you asking if I have encountered a fire alarm contractor who was paid money to maintain a system and then didn't?  Yes, I've seen this, but this doesn't mean I'll be telling people to be grateful that their contractors bother to turn up, I expect higher standards than that.

[CALTEX]

I think we are wandering away from the main issue here. Most school maintanance contracts that I have come across are priced for "normal working hours" but when you arrive on site nobody wants to hear sounders, so you are left with the option of abandoning the maintenance or disabling sounders during the test. Given the size and poor escape route planning in most schools that I have maintained, (not to mention the fact that fire escape passageways are commonly used for storage) I would not want my child in a building where some fire alarm engineer is wandering around in the building, a real evacuation is required, sounders are disabled and the only person who can re-enable them has to be located and returned to the panel in order for this to happen. Meanwhile fire/smoke is spreading etc...
A large University that we maintain has a fire warden system (hand held air horns & a warden/marshall on every floor) that can be put into action during any disablement. (Probably required to compensate for lower intelligence levels of students when compared to primary school kids!) so if a university has seen the need for this, presumably after risk assesment, then why do schools not do something along the same lines?
To respond to Mike Buckley, I have not come across any school that had an alternative system in palce for evacution in the event on alarm failure. What is even more worrying from a parents point of view ( I know this has been raised elsewhere in this forum) is that one local authority on our client base has about 40% of its schools on "mains only" systems, so some alternative evacuation plan should be in place anyway!
Back to my origial point, is there any legislation covering this issue?
If fire panel manufacturers have seen the need to design a "walk test by zone" feature into their systems, are the anticipating future legislation or does it already exist?
I am not personally prepared to put lives at risk so that maintenance quotas can be met.

[Chris Houston]

I don't think there is any legislation that covers the issue of when school fire alarm systems should be maintained.  Schools are required to comply with exactly the same legislation as everywhere else (the exceptions to this are pieces of legilation about education, tresspass, knifes etc, nothing to do with fires as far as I am aware.)

[Ryan]

I don't see the problem, as long as we know it is a test, its ok. At my school we have a tannoy system, and if anything is going on, they tell us. Guess not all schools have them.
Another thing I found weird at my school is that the extinguishers are all foam and CO2. Considering there isn't anything too flammable apart from paper and such, I would have thought Powder and CO2 would be a better option. Maybe its because foam can cool the fire better than Powder, but that makes no difference if no-one is in the building. We also have a 'Fire Brigade Foam Inlet' Which to me looks like a dry riser, but again, why foam?

[kurnal]

Dry powder is a great and versatile firefighting agent. But in a building it reduces visibility, can affect people with breathing problems and creates a lot of dust, which can ruin delicate equipment. So use it where you have to but if there is another option then use it.
All premises have to make provision for dealing with class A fires. Water is great for this because of its cooling effect. But modern foam sprays are also very effective on class A fires and can also be used on class B (flammable liquids). So foam is more versatile. Size for size, a 6 litre foam spray has the class A firefighting capacity of a 9 litre water extinguisher. So they can be smaller and lighter but pack the same punch. You can now buy a water extinguishers containing detergent like additives to the extent that a 3 litre water with additives extinguisher has the same rating as a 9 litre water without. But with only 3 litres to play with you have to be accurate and decisive in their use- cos they dont last long.  So foam spray is usually my first choice these days as a general purpose extinguisher

[kurnal]

The foam inlet will probably be the fire brigade to pump foam into a basement oil fired boiler house.

[Ryan]

Now I think of it, that about the boiler is true Thanks for that about the extinguishers, I would have always used Powder as the general purpose, but Now I'll think again

[Richard Earl]

hi most of my schools that i service have bought into a pager system linked to the fire panel, then when the bells a disconnected the pager still workes, they also have an alarm verificaton time built in to the system. most areaddresable systems though.