Brigade attendance to automatic signalled systems

[David Rooney]

Fire detection technology has vastly improved in the last 20 years and in my experience the majority of "false alarms" are down to human actions and poor system management by building occupiers that have no respect for their fire detection system and certainly don't want to pay for a company to do any more than sign a "certificate" to satisfy an insurance agent let alone pay for a day of cleaning detectors.

Unfortunately the fire alarm industry as a whole is still probably one of the worst regulated bastions of society and there is still nothing in place to prevent Joe Blogs the local plumber from installing an AFA in a care home and getting it linked to an ARC.

You can tell people they are responsible for using "competent" trades as much as you like. Lots of them still don't care.

Everything is aimed at taking people to court after the fact, when the dodgy installer has banked the money and gone out of business.

As long a there is a bit of paper in a file with "I have commissioned the fire alarm and it complies with BS 5836 .... Honest guv" no one gives a monkeys uncle and no one in authority looking at the piece of paper has a clue what it actually means or whether the system installed actually meets current EN54 / BS5839 / CPD etc requirements.

Until the thing doesn't work 6 months later and there is the obligatory outcry of "I told you so" and "lets have another enquiry".

If the people in authority grew a pair 15 years ago and only allowed BAFE and equally approved companies to register AFAs with ARCs - similar to security systems and NACOSS then at least there would have been accountability and sanctions against RPs and FA Companies that didn't sort out the problems.

None of the cheap rubbish generally imported to wholesalers and installed by sparkies, fire extinguisher companies and every other wannabe fire alarm engineer would have got connected to an ARC and so the "vast rate of false alarm" calls would never have been an issue and could have been managed.

The false alarm issues today aren't all down to the equipment they're down to the disgraceful regulation of this industry by the enforcing authorities that have stood back and allowed non compliant systems to be installed by idiots and connected to Redcare for years. 

And none of this actually addresses the original question!

[jayjay]

I have just been sent details of some Siemens detectors that are guaranteed not to cause false alarms so confident are  they that they will give £500 cash back if they fault?
They appear to be multi sensors and work on a number of settings, depending on the environment.
I do not suppose that the cash back would apply if the panel faulted.

Any body have any experience of them?

see link

http://www.industry.siemens.co.uk/buildingtechnologies/uk/en/fire-safety-products/cerberus-pro/Documents/033_CerberusPRO_IP3_0-92257_ASAtechnology%20flyer.pdf

[David Rooney]

I have just been sent details of some Siemens detectors that are guaranteed not to cause false alarms so confident are  they that they will give £500 cash back if they fault?
They appear to be multi sensors and work on a number of settings, depending on the environment.
I do not suppose that the cash back would apply if the panel faulted.

Any body have any experience of them?

see link

http://www.industry.siemens.co.uk/buildingtechnologies/uk/en/fire-safety-products/cerberus-pro/Documents/033_CerberusPRO_IP3_0-92257_ASAtechnology%20flyer.pdf

Yes they are very good detectors but will only work with a Siemens panel and the system will cost you silly money and the customer will be tied to Siemens and their call out charges for the life of the system.

They've been advertising that claim for years ....

I've always used Hochiki or Apollo and can say that the systems we have installed have produced no more false alarms than this Siemens system that we maintain for a big client.

In fact we just ripped the Siemens out and replaced with Hochiki due to the extortionate charges to replace a call point that went wrong.

[colin todd]

Samuel, you seem to be changing your statistics. You were claiming that you knew the causes of a defined percentage of false alarms, and now you are telling us what percentage of fire alarm signals are false alarms. You are right that is not rocket science, but fire fighters are about as good at determining  the cause of the false alarms as they are at rocket science.

[SamFIRT]

Colin .......the statistics speak for themselves.

What are you afraid of?

[jayjay]

Re David Rooney response

I was also told the detector heads can be fitted to other systems, can you confirm if this is right or wrong?

[David Rooney]

Not as far as I'm aware .... they use Siemens protocol so I don't see how.

[Steven N]

The police don't attend every burglar alarm going off do they?
In my experience for what its worth, I found the majority of UWFS were down to poor management of the systems. The systems themselves providing they were maintained were fine. I agree that the system fault stop was awful as it said nothing. At one stage we were identifying UWFs caused by  management fault  which accounted for a very high percentage of calls i.e. alarm testing without informing anyone or workman not informing anyone what they were up to.
A well maintained and managed system would generate a minimal number of calls per year which fire services could deal with , but when such a large number of  the calls attended are avoidable thats is not sustainable, particularly in this cash straitened times, although I would argue even if we were wading in money they are still an unnecessary burden.
(sticks on tin hat now)

[Wiz]

Notwithstanding what actually causes the actuation, if a fire crew attend the activation of an AFA ... and there is no fire... it is a false alarm! So bracket the two (electrical and mechanical ...best guess)  together and you get the total number of false alarms. Deduct this from the number of times there is a fire to which the crew have been called to by the sounding of an AFA and you have the percentage. It's not rocket science.

Alarm with no fire = false alarm.  The argument that fire crews are not qualified fire alarm engineers or even qualified electricians is spurious and distracting.

Crews in my FRS are instructed to not re set alarms, they are to ask the responsible person to do it. .... because ....they are not qualified fire alarm engineers.

Alarm with no fire = false alarm

And therein lies the problem!

Too many 'false alarms' are attributed to the equipment/installation where, in fact, it is performing exactly how it is meant to.

If no-one can ascertain which of those 'false alarms' could be avoided by proper and sensible use of the system, then there will be no way of reducing the level of false alarms.

Over the past 20 years I believe the manufacturers have increased the reliability of equipment, I also believe the standard of installation has improved a fair amount.  I base this on the knowledge that the number of systems installed has increased dramatically in the past 20 years, but the level of false alarms hasn't.  I put this down to better British standards and a better awareness of those British Standards.

Unfortunately, the users of the systems are just as 'unknowing/uncaring' as they ever were, and still create / or allow preventable 'false alarms'.

Don't just always blame the equipment or installation. There is definitely another side to the problem that needs to be addressed.

[SamFIRT]

To quote myself Wiz

Now I am not a professional fire risk assessor, nor am I a fire alarm engineer, but I say those of you who are, should stop beating about the bush and get your act together to stop unwanted activations of fire alarm systems

I agree it is not all the fault of the engineers. The engineer and the risk assessor and the RP must act together to reduce unwanted FA's And that is why FRS like Kent are challenging AFA calls and asking people to check to see if there is actually a fire before they respond with the publicly provided fire crew, ...........to get back to the original point of the thread.

[David Rooney]

Well seeing as everything tends to legally be the responsibility of the RP what seems to be failing predominantly is the provision of information and the enforcement.

[Steven N]

Brilliantly put Wiz

[Mike Buckley]

Interesting to look at the CFOA document from 2010. 'CFOA Protocol for the Reduction of False Alarms and Unwanted Fire Signals' which whilst it does put in place a procedure for call filtering only recommends no operational response if the caller confirms it is a false or unwanted alarm, and states
"It is important to note that call filtering is an effective way of achieving a step reduction in the number of UwFS attended. However if it is not carried out in accordance with the guidance above it may delay emergency attendance in the event of fire increasing the risk of property damage, injury and fatality."

It also states "FRS control operators must be careful not to recommend the inveatigationof an alarm during an emergency call. If investigation was possible it should have already been carried out as part of their existing procedures before the emergency cll was made."

[SamFIRT]

If investigation was possible it should have already been carried out as part of their existing procedures before the emergency cll was made."

Exactly the point and manifestly what is not happening. As proven by the DCLG stats.

[Steven N]

Interesting to look at the CFOA document from 2010. 'CFOA Protocol for the Reduction of False Alarms and Unwanted Fire Signals' which whilst it does put in place a procedure for call filtering only recommends no operational response if the caller confirms it is a false or unwanted alarm, and states
"It is important to note that call filtering is an effective way of achieving a step reduction in the number of UwFS attended. However if it is not carried out in accordance with the guidance above it may delay emergency attendance in the event of fire increasing the risk of property damage, injury and fatality."

It also states "FRS control operators must be careful not to recommend the inveatigationof an alarm during an emergency call. If investigation was possible it should have already been carried out as part of their existing procedures before the emergency cll was made."

But what happens when they dont do that?