Author Topic: Fire Alarm Tests on a Phased System  (Read 7495 times)

Offline Fairway123

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Fire Alarm Tests on a Phased System
« on: July 17, 2017, 08:51:10 PM »
Can anyone please outline what is the required testing sequence for the weekly test on a phased alarm system? We have taken on space in a new office that has a phased system, and in the test sequence the system only goes into 'evacuate' on 1 floor per week. The issue that we're having is that our space has a lot of electromagnetic locks and green BGUs, and they only de-activate on the floor when the alarm sequence goes into evacuate. Typically in our other offices we check that these de-activate on alarm activation, by checking 1 or 2 each week at the time of the alarm - but as we stand we can only test this one week in 15!

Is it reasonable to ask the building manager to test all floors each week? All other tenants will need to do similar, so there will be a few who will be asking a similar question.

I'm sure a lot of you will have come across this, would you mind sharing how you got around it?

Many thanks

F123

Offline Tom Sutton

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Re: Fire Alarm Tests on a Phased System
« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2017, 08:59:59 AM »
Check out BS 7273-4:2015 Code of practice for the operation of fire protection measures. Actuation of release mechanisms for doors, check out clauses 21.1 testing. My interpretation would be all maglocks not operated by the fire alarm test should be operated weekly by operating the manual release. Hopefully someone else will confirm this.
All my responses only apply to England and Wales and they are an overview of the subject, hopefully it will point you in the right direction and always treat with caution.

Offline Fairway123

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Re: Fire Alarm Tests on a Phased System
« Reply #2 on: July 19, 2017, 09:27:34 AM »
Thanks Tom

Offline alonso

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Re: Fire Alarm Tests on a Phased System
« Reply #3 on: July 19, 2017, 09:40:16 AM »
Fairway123,
    Whilst it is not ideal if its an addressable panel you can quite often activate certain outputs remotely from the panel  if you know the loop and address numbers without sounding all alarms.  What panel is the system?

Offline Fairway123

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Re: Fire Alarm Tests on a Phased System
« Reply #4 on: July 20, 2017, 11:09:05 AM »
Thanks - to be honest as we're a tenant, I don't actually know (yet). Its a brand new building with state of the art equipment, so I'm positive that this feature will be available.

Thanks again