Fire Alarm

[Service Engineer]

As an employee Dave you are quite correct. As I know who you work, for I would anticipate that you have been given a training/ installation procedures book which will be regularly updated

You are correct, this company keeps me informed... and supplies regular updates by email or other means as required.

But I was basing my previous post on the last ten years working for previous employers, not the last 2 months with my current employer.

[morph]

But I was basing my previous post on the last ten years working for previous employers, not the last 2 months with my current employer.

I can see what your saying, but wouldn't you say that the Inspectorates have a duty to ensure that allthough the office has the BS, that the engineers get the information also and are kept up to date. BS50131 makes an emphasis on training and qualifications, but shouldn't the inspectorates make more of an effort on the whole "compliance "thing.

[Service Engineer]

but shouldn't the inspectorates make more of an effort on the whole "compliance "thing.

They certainly should, its a pity that every aspect of a company isnt inspected, I`d like to see the inspectorate spending a day with a randon Installer and Service Engineer from each company as well as a tightening on what currently gets inspected.

[Adi]

I agree ADI.

But what price do you put on a life if the system fails to operate simply because it wasn't installed correctly.

Or Can you afford to replace the property and contents because the system wasn't installed correctly and the clients insurance company wont pay out.

39445[/snapback]

I dont put a price on a persons life. i agree with what your saying.

The regs are there for a reason and should be followed.

But as for the price of regs here is my little story.

I bought a book called fire detection and alarm systems, a guide to the bs code bs5839-1:2002 by colin todd.£30.(a great little book) but then bought my own copy of the regs because i wanted to know the full regs straight from the horses mouth so to speak, but there wasnt anything in the regs that wasnt in the little red book.

[secboy]

Have done this link also if you ask any Fire guy he will say its obvious why it should be in fp200 or similar: If the fire is between the fire alarm and the equipment you wish to control the cable could burn thru before the alarm relay has been tasked to carry out its job if its FP theres a better chance it will still be capable of carrying out its task.

I've had to look into fire install / design regs/methods over the past few weeks and have come to the conclusion that although there are hard and fast rules which govern this side of the security bussiness it is still open to individual interpretation,It is such a serious subject due to the consequences of getting it wrong I wonder if questions other than "where can i obtain professional advise "should be allowed to be asked in the open forem,would it be possible to stop these questions with some form of key word block? I realise it would be a form of sensorship but for the best possible reasons,keep fire questions within the fire trade forem where the guys know what their doing! Any comments?? :!:

[Lectrician]

But if they are going to do the job anyway, with or without help, is it not best if they can get some advice?

Being a spark, I install fire alarms fairly regularly. The get passed onto a a company for maintenance. I had a simple question, that was answered. If I didn't receive an answer, I would have stayed on the side of caution anyway.

If you want to take this sort of stance with the forum, then surely the whole forum shouldn't exist in the public eye?

[secboy]

Dont take it so personel!! this is a discussion forem everyone has an opinion about something,you say if you didn't receive the answer you needed you would not have done the job but what if you had taken the first two answers as correct and due to the job being urgent got stuck in and did not use FP cable??? next week theres a fire which burns through your link wire and someone dies from suffocation because of it!!!! if a similar thing happens with cctv it is unlikely although i realise not impossible to be the direct cause of a fatality as with intruder should this opinion be rejected out of hand or be seriously considered???

Please give opinions guys(calmly).

My mates just come in and we've had a chat about this and two things have surfaced :

a. do you intend to shut the fan down or start it?

b. if you do a lot of fire why don't you know about FP on auxilary equipment

If you carry out the work are you "qualified" to do so if you are not qualified do you carry out the work under qualified supervision or do you rely on the company issuing the certification to point out any of your work which must be changed because it does not comply I'm not saying there is anything wrong regardless of your answers but it does create an interesting discussion point don't you think?and thats supposed to be one of the reasons for this forem Paul.

[Lectrician]

Fans shut down, they are intake and extract.

I always wire to a spec, and always in mineral or fire-tuff.

All systems are certified, and used to be inspected by the local Fire Authority, although they now no longer inspect.

In hind sight, it was a fairly stupid question, although a fairly relative one, as many others gave conflicting advice it obviously leads to say people are unsure.

The main reason I asked was that the Intruder Alarm at the same premises is connected to the Fire Alarm panel with standard 6 core alarm cable - this raised my question.

[breff]

The thing is though if the 6 core gets set on fire the intruder alarm doesnt signal through to the ARC, it still doesnt stop the fire alarm from activating or sounding so nobody dies everyone lives happily everafter.

[secboy]

Nice one! now that you have explained that it comes over much better but i hope you under stand my concern over advice being given out on fire by people who are obviously not fire people its no reflection on the individual because thats the way the security industry has always been but hopefully it is being forced to change which will make it better for qualified people such as yourself and me and remove people from the system who really are working under false pretences at the moment.

Over the next couple of years regulation of the industry will increase and that will benifit all of us who are qualified,those of us who are prepared to put in the effort to become qualified and of course those who can prove that thru their experience in the industry they are competant even if they have no formal qualifications .

What we dont need is so called governing inspectorate bodies taking the opportunity to fleece us out of hard earned dosh when they should be organising affordable training for all within the industry(BSIA how about creating a training school within the industry to train people up at cost!that means non profit making!!) you could help create an industry that we could all be proud of and be more part of or am i into a fantasy world again????.

One last thing any link between alarm and fire panel would never be wired in 8core by myself!!! any thoughts by others???? Paul