Old / New problem (false alarms)

[Benzerari]

False alarms cost fire service thousands


http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/News/Article.aspx?articleid=9996


What else can be done to cut down false alarms costs?

[Thomas Brookes]

If you bring in a legal requirement that all fire alarm installers/ designers and commissioners are all third party accredited would be a start.

Also enforce the fire safety training at all companies, maybe ensure that every company has a fully trained fire warden.

[David Rooney]

Do away with fire pumps, go back to a horse and cart and a state of the art water pistol.

ozone friendly, small carbon footprint and good for the roses.....   

[Steven N]

In my experience its mainly the end user at fault not the system or the installer, so until the end users are educated then we will have an unacceptably high number of UWFS. An example of this is taking the system off line when carrying out a weekly test or isolating zones when work is happening in that area. I'm sure someone far more important than me sugested education education education! Who knows that may even work 

[Allen Higginson]

If you bring in a legal requirement that all fire alarm installers/ designers and commissioners are all third party accredited would be a start.

Also enforce the fire safety training at all companies, maybe ensure that every company has a fully trained fire warden.

Apart from the paper trail that third pary acreditation generates, how would that overcome false alarms??
You can't babysit over a system in case the end user does someting that they aren't meant to be doing in an area that requires special consideration.

[natdan]

The only way to stop the UWFA is to impose fines increasing with each one.  If this meant the weekly tests etc where then contracted out to a specialist contractor then the onus would be on the contractor to ensure the equipment was in good working order and take on the responsibility.

[Allen Higginson]

The only way to stop the UWFA is to impose fines increasing with each one.  If this meant the weekly tests etc where then contracted out to a specialist contractor then the onus would be on the contractor to ensure the equipment was in good working order and take on the responsibility.

The weekly test of a different MCP each week would only stop false alarms that were caused by someone not letting the ARC know that the test was taking place.
There would be no onus on the contractor to walk the site to see potential false alarms and,speaking personally as an engineer,it would be more hassle than it was worth.
I had one site that (as per company procedure) the weekly test was at 11am each Thursday - this tied me up to make sure I was available and if a fault came in (or I was held up elsewhere) their test wasn't done.

[Thomas Brookes]

Buzzard,

My comments are simple to explain, to lower the amount of false alarms (you will never stop them)

If all commissioners  as a minimum were third party approved, no system should get on line that had the wrong detectors or installed/ modified incorrectly etc.

And

Properly enforced Staff Training would bring down the user error false alarm figures.

[Allen Higginson]

Buzzard,

My comments are simple to explain, to lower the amount of false alarms (you will never stop them)

If all commissioners  as a minimum were third party approved, no system should get on line that had the wrong detectors or installed/ modified incorrectly etc.

And

Properly enforced Staff Training would bring down the user error false alarm figures.

Morning Thomas - the key word there is "should". However,I have seen third approved systems (that are in house from survey right through to commissioining) that have blatant errors with regards to locations or type of detectors installed,panel inications etc.
Another company has a large multiple maintenance contract where they do not test the sounders during their visits on a number of the sites as the customer reckons they should accept the weekly test as evidence of them working.They got this contract because they had SP203!
I don't doubt the benefit of these schemes in theory but I am not a confident in practice.

[AnthonyB]

As an aside in most of the buildings we visit sounders are not tested during the service visits - different companies, different premises management companies.

It seems no one wants the disruption beyond the weekly test.

Third party accreditation may make the original install OK, but so many of the multi occ's we visit have alterations all the time that render the configuration poor, a common one being creating a tea room/tea station in a normal office area thus leading to false alarms from the smokes.

Ongoing monitoring if the end user and ongoing education (plus perhaps a more punitive response to false alarms from FRS as cutting off ARC response doesn't really seem to bother end users) is probably the main areas to deal with