A commercial fire alarm is tested weekly by you, serviced every six months by an engineer, and every device is tested at least once a year. Here are the BS 5839-1 intervals, who is responsible for each and what to write down.
The short answer
BS 5839-1, the British Standard for fire alarms in commercial and communal buildings, sets three rhythms. The responsible person tests the system every week. A competent fire alarm engineer inspects and services it at intervals of no more than six months. Over the course of a year, every detector, call point and sounder is tested at least once. Each of these is written in the fire alarm log book.
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 does not name the intervals itself. It says the system must be maintained in efficient working order and in good repair, and the fire risk assessor, the insurer and the fire and rescue service all read that as BS 5839-1. If your assessment says the alarm must be tested and serviced in line with BS 5839-1, the intervals below are what it means.
Weekly: the test you do yourself
Once a week, at roughly the same time, one manual call point is operated with the test key and the alarm is allowed to sound long enough to confirm the panel went into fire, the sounders operated and any link to an alarm receiving centre was received. A different call point is used each week so that, over time, all of them are tested. The result goes in the log book with the date, the call point used and any fault.
Staff should know the test time so nobody evacuates. If the building has an evacuation strategy that relies on the alarm, a weekly test is also the moment to confirm the sounders can be heard everywhere.
Many of our customers in London prefer to have the weekly test carried out by an engineer, with the log book kept for them. We do this from £70 + VAT a visit, with every call point covered in turn and a record you can show an inspector.
Every six months: inspection and service by an engineer
BS 5839-1 recommends that a competent person inspects and services the system at intervals not exceeding six months. At each visit the engineer checks the log book for faults since the last visit, inspects the panel, batteries and power supplies, checks the standby battery under load, tests a proportion of the detectors and call points so that every device is covered within twelve months, confirms the cause and effect (for example door releases and lift grounding), checks the sounders and any visual alarms, and looks for changes to the building that affect the design, such as new partitions or a changed use.
The visit ends with a certificate of inspection and servicing. That certificate is what the fire risk assessor, the insurer and the licensing officer ask to see. A monitored system also has its link to the alarm receiving centre tested.
Our six-monthly service for a conventional panel is from £180 + VAT a visit, and from £240 + VAT for an addressable panel, with the certificate issued on the day.
Every year: every device tested
Across the two six-monthly visits, every automatic detector, every call point and every alarm device must have been tested. The engineer records which devices were tested at each visit so that nothing is missed. Smoke detectors are tested with test smoke or an aerosol, heat detectors with a heat source, and the panel's event log is checked for unexplained faults or disablements.
Emergency lighting runs on a separate standard, BS 5266-1, but it is usually looked after on the same contract: a short function test every month and a full three-hour duration test once a year, with its own certificate.
What has to be written down
The log book is the evidence that the intervals have been kept. It should record every weekly test, every service visit, every fault and its repair, every false alarm and its cause, and any period when part of the system was disabled. An inspector who finds no log book usually assumes no testing has been done.
- Weekly: date, call point tested, result, who tested it
- Six-monthly: engineer's certificate, devices tested, faults found and cleared
- Annual: confirmation that every device has been tested over the year, emergency lighting duration test certificate
- Any time: false alarms, faults, disablements, changes to the building
Who is responsible
The responsible person under the Fire Safety Order is the employer, the owner, or whoever has control of the premises, which in a block of flats is usually the managing agent or the residents' management company. They can appoint a competent contractor to carry out the servicing and even the weekly test, but the duty to make sure it happens stays with them. See our guide to who is responsible for fire alarm testing for the detail.
Get the intervals looked after for you
Security Red Alert services commercial fire alarms across London to BS 5839-1: six-monthly visits with a certificate every time, the weekly test if you want it taken off your hands, and the annual emergency lighting test on the same contract. We are members of the British Fire Consortium and hold its Fire Alarm Modules 1 and 2. Call 020 8946 5567 or book a free survey and we will tell you what your system needs.
Need help with this in London?
Security Red Alert covers all 32 London boroughs from our Summerstown SW17 office. Explore our Fire Alarm Installation, Home Fire Alarms, Fire Extinguishers and Emergency Lighting Testing services, or call 020 8946 5567 for a free survey.
