Fire Extinguisher Maintenance

Fire Extinguisher Maintenance – Your Responsibilities

See The Following Related Pages:

Main Fire Extinguishers Page
Where To Buy Fire Extinguishers

Proper fire extinguisher maintenance is essential to the safety of any workplace, and is also a legal requirement for any employer. Making sure that all your fire safety equipment is in proper working order is a requirement under current UK legislation, but it also makes a lot of sense from a business continuity perspective too. In general there are two things you need to do in order to ensure proper fire extinguisher maintenance. Have your appliances inspected by a trained engineer at least once per year, and carry out regular in house checks yourself at more frequent intervals.

Fire Extinguisher Maintenance – Testing And Inspection

All your appliances should be looked at not less than once every 12 months by a competent person. There is no set qualification that a person must have in the UK in order to be classed as ‘competent’ but it can reasonably be taken to mean a trained representative of either the appliance manufacturer or an equivalent trained technician working for a specialist contractor. The British Approvals for Fire Equipment (BAFE) operate various schemes to set and monitor standards in fire equipment maintenance, so that is a good standard to check for when looking for an appropriate person to do your fire extinguisher maintenance.

For most of us, having these inspections carried out means bringing in a specialist company to do this work on an annual basis. The best way to make sure this does not get forgotten is to have an ongoing contract for the fire extinguisher maintenance so that the contractor contacts you whenever the inspection is due.

Fire Extinguisher Maintenance – Regular Checks In House

As well as the formal inspections by a competent person, you should also make arrangements for regular visual checks on all your fire fighting appliances. It is not enough to ignore them for twelve months between maintenance checks. You should set up a regular system for checking your equipment. The frequency of checking will depend partly on your particular environment, but an average a monthly check is a good starting point. This is the type of job that can be given to someone in your organisation, perhaps someone trained as a Fire Marshall. The kinds of things you need to be doing on these inspections are as follows:

Make sure no-one has moved the fire extinguisher from where it is meant to be.
Make sure the appliance has not been covered up or that access to it has been blocked by other objects being placed in front of it.
Look at the pin in the handle and make sure it is properly in place and has not been removed or damaged.
If the extinguisher has a pressure gauge check that the needle is in the green area indicating an appropriate pressure level.
If you have dry powder fire extinguishers it is worth shaking them upside down every six months or so to prevent the powder settling.
Check the appliance all over for signs of damage. Look for dents and cracks or areas of corrosion. These are all potential warning signs so get it checked out if you find any.
Make sure the extinguisher has a proper label and is not dirty or covered with any material that prevents the label being easily read.

Keep a proper written record of these checks so that you can demonstrate good practice with regard to fire extinguisher maintenance should any incidents occur.

Finding The Time For Fire Extinguisher Maintenance

One of the most common difficulties for people running a business is finding the extra time needed to take care of the many duties that are necessary under health and safety legislation. Many companies use the services of fire consultants to help with this workload. The main advantages being that you hand over as much or as little of this work as you want to and can rest assured that it will be dealt with in a way that ensures you are completely up to date in terms of meeting current legal and safety requirements.

Fire consultants can deal with everything from carrying out your fire risk assessment and writing an emergency plan, to staff training and looking after all your safety equipment needs. More and more companies are handing over the whole fire safety remit to consultants, in order to leave them to get on with running their business.