April 2025
In order to ensure the fire alarm system works at its optimum level it is necessary to understand the actions and consequences for false alarms and their management.
Unless the cause of spurious alarms can be identified by your incumbent partner and changes made to the performance of your system any changes made to the performance of detectors needs to be qualified by your incumbent and your risk assessor.
It is possible that any changes to the sensitivity of the devices may impact on both their compliance and the overall certification level of the system.
It is essential therefore that in the event of a site having ongoing nuisance alarms that the client and incumbent to (1) investigate proximate cause (2) evaluate changes and (3) provide a compliant change.
IF the devices used have not passed all of the EN54 Part 7 test then there is a potential for devices that are diluted in terms of performance to actually be outside of the EN/BS test program and thus potentially then void the clients insurance cover as well as the system itself being non-compliant.
Therefore engagement with the incumbent is absolutely vital to ensure that all of the elements involved are addressed when a site has a significant false alarm problem.
The cause of the issue must be found and addressed rather than just to dilute the performance of the device to mask the problem.
Steve Dilloway BAFE SP205 Certified Risk Assessor- BAFE ID 302298
