Importance of Well Maintained Portable Fire Equipment
Portable Fire Extinguishers maintained properly are essential as they ensure you can rely on them in an emergency to tackle a small fire, reducing damage and risk to life. However, fire extinguishers are often forgotten about.
Unfortunately, one of the most common uses of fire extinguishers is to hold open doors or just generally abused, they can lead a hard life and this is why annual servicing by a competent person is vital.
Playing an important role in firefighting, and essential for full compliance, fire extinguishers which are not properly maintained carry a risk that they will fail to operate when you need them most. This could be as a result of corrosion, damage or a loss of pressure as they are mechanical devices and like anything of that nature require servicing regularly.
Why having your Fire Extinguisher Servicing Is Important?
When a fire extinguisher technician who has the relevant training, qualifications, tools and equipment attends, they carry out a thirty-point check on every extinguisher. This means that potential issues can be identified and rectified before it’s too late, giving you peace of mind. This could be from something as simple as lubricating a pin or tightening something up, to replacing the unit.
Every fire extinguisher sold in the Ireland is manufactured in accordance with the EN3-7 and the Irish Standard Legislation IS:291-2015+A1:2022. This same standard states that servicing should be carried out annually, and failure to do so will also void your fire extinguisher warranty.
On top of that, the Fire Safety Act 1981 legislation for Republic of Ireland says that the responsible person should do everything practically possible to prevent and prepare for a fire, in accordance with the relevant standards. In Northern Ireland, other fire safety legislation applies, but the message is broadly the same.
To this effect, commissioning of new fire extinguishers is also essential to ensure no damage has occurred in transit.
Choosing A Fire Extinguisher Technician
When selecting a maintenance company, firstly ensure that their technicians have undergone and passed all of the relevant training. This is to ensure the competence of the company and/or individual being employed to carry out inspection and maintenance. Ask them for the most up to date Certificate of Competency here at GD Gendist Fire & Safety we undertake this training every two years for all of our staff, technicians and administrators.
You should also be wary of prices. While one company may look cheaper, it’s possible that they will then add charges for new washers, pins, seals, extinguisher gauges which another may include as standard, but worse of all as we will cover in our next article just update the Service Label and do not work at all on the Extinguisher units.
At GD Gendist Fire & Safety we have fully-trained and experienced technicians across the island of Ireland we carry out a free of charge survey on your premises and give you a list of what is required to make your building/business compliant and the cost for doing same with no hidden extras.