Maintaining and operating your fire protection systems is important – but it can be difficult if you don’t know what you’re doing. At Fire Control Systems, we want to help everyone stay as safe as possible by knowing exactly what to do with their fire protection systems.
Here is a list to ensure you understand your fire protection system.
- Take responsibility for your fire protection systems– As a building operator you are responsible for the inspection, testing, and maintenance of your fire protection systems. You should know what it takes to maintain your systems at a high level of reliability and ensure that are working at all times.
- Understand how your fire protection system works – Learn the difference between your fire alarm’s trouble signal and supervisory signal. Do you know the correct way to respond to these different signals? It’s important that you learn how your system operates so you know how to act in an emergency.
- Know your fire protection system’s inspection and maintenance requirements – Learn the minimum inspection, testing, and maintenance requirements for all of your fire protection systems. It is important not to overlook visual inspections in between professional ones! Perform the maintenance tasks necessary to keep the system in good operating condition. These tasks include both periodic preventative maintenance activities and making the required repairs revealed by the inspection or testing of the system components.
- Train your people – Everyone in your building should have a basic understanding of what to do in the event of a fire. Some must understand how to operate the fire protection system so they can interact with it in the event of an emergency. Others should know how to operate a fire extinguisher. Still others need only know the best evacuation route to get out of the building as soon as possible.
- Keep record keeping up to date– Know where your building’s fire protection documentation is located. You may have several types of records that are important to maintain. These documents should include a “Record of Completion” document for the fire alarm system, as-built drawings, owner’s manuals, site-specific software, and a written sequence of operation. Facility managers should also keep records of past inspections and service of the system.
Those are the five things you SHOULD do when it comes to your fire protection system – check back soon for the five things you should NOT do! Let Fire Control Systems help you keep on top of all of these.