Weekly fire alarm tests are a requirement of British Standard BS 5839 and all certified premises under the Fire Precautions Act 1971.

The results of the weekly fire alarm tests will be recorded in the premise's Fire Log Book.

Where a commercial property has a shared fire alarm system, it is the commercial property manager's responsibility to ensure that the fire alarm system is tested and maintained in accordance with the recommendations of BS 5839 Part 1, 2002.  This means the premises should conduct a weekly audibility fire alarm test.

Your responsibilities

Appropriate records must be kept and relevant occupants in the premises must be made aware of their roles and responsibilities in connection with the fire alarm system.  It should also be the duty of the responsible person to ensure that necessary steps are taken to avoid situations that are detrimental to the standard of protection afforded by the system and to ensure that the level of false alarms is minimised.

It is a requirement under The Fire Precautions Act 1971 that all Fire Certificated premises conduct a weekly audibility fire alarm test. This test should be conducted from a different call point each week in rotation, thus helping to ensure that the system is in working order. It is important that all the occupants of the building can clearly hear the alarm in the event of an emergency..

Your weekly test

An Emtech inspecting officer will attend the building each week at the same designated time, and will conduct the weekly fire alarm test in accordance with the requirements laid out in British Standard BS 5839. A different manual call point will be used during each weekly test, so that all call points in the building are tested in rotation. The test will confirm that the control equipment is capable of processing a fire alarm signal and providing an output to fire alarm sounders and to ensure that the fire alarm signal is correctly received at any alarm receiving centre to which the fire alarm signals are transmitted.

The results of the test will be recorded in the client’s Fire Log Book and should the results be unacceptable, the managing agent will be informed that day, notifying you of the fault and the necessary action that needs to be taken to rectify the problem.
In addition to the above, the testing officer will conduct a cursory Health & Safety check of the common parts, and in turn will report any findings to the managing agent. i.e. ‘carpet on main stairs requires repair’ to negate the possibility of a tenant making a claim against the management company.

Every thirteen weeks a single page report on each property will be sent to the client. This will show the results of each test and from which call point the fire alarm system was activated.