Week 7 no.1 – Fire Alarm Block Plans & Baseline Data

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Why Fire Alarm Block Plans Are Essential in Routine Fire Alarm Maintenance

Technicians often overlook fire alarm block plans during routine fire alarm servicing. Both AS1851-2012 and AS1851-2005 Routine Service of Fire Protection Systems and Equipment emphasize this requirement. For at least a decade, block plans have been critical to ensuring proper maintenance and fire safety compliance.

another TYPICAL BLOCK PLANS or BLOCK DIAGRAMS Typical TYPICAL LAYOUT Smoke detectors, Basement level

Again and again, I arrive to quote a maintenance job, only to find no block plans or installation data available. There are a number of problems with this for ME, the prospective contractor, and YOU, the facility manager or owner.

I have detailed my top half dozen concerns below.

  1. Fire Brigade Call Outs: When the Fire Brigade arrives, they may struggle to locate the detectors that triggered the alarm. Even worse, they may face hazards that are undocumented and hidden.
  2. Following a fire

    After a fire, even a minor one, your insurance provider will undertake an insurance investigation on your claim. This will be hampered in the event block drawings are out of date or non-existent. This is just the sort of finding to put at risk the validity of your insurance cover.
  3. Scheduled maintenance

    Routine checks, whether monthly, annual, or periodic, are more challenging and costly without block diagrams to locate relevant equipment.
  4. Break down maintenance

    A technician, whether mine or yours, can only repair a faulty system if they locate the detector that triggered the alarm
  5. Maintenance challenges arise when even your regular contractor forgets the layout. Specialists or substitutes often struggle, requiring time-wasting searches to locate things.
  6. Switching maintenance contractors can be challenging without information on your system. The new contractor starts from scratch, and investigation time adds costs. Disputes may arise over necessary work.

How can we help?

We can survey and document your system and create new block plans and as built drawings. If your drawings need updates, we can handle it. If you lack soft copies, we can as-build from old prints.

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