Fire alarms are necessary in order to prevent loss of life and property in the event of a fire. Fire safety is therefore something that should be taken very seriously in the workplace. Owning a business is a huge responsibility and once you have taken on staff, your business becomes liable for the safety of those people. Accidental fires claim lives but this can be prevented, providing the correct installation of business fire alarm systems.
Installing alarms and
detectors could save lives and also protect your business as a whole.
Choose either to suit your working environment:
- Manual System – call points on the wall for when someone sees a fire. They can activate it and set off the alarms. This is adequate for a specific working environment where people are always present.
- Automatic Fire Detection – Fire would be automatically picked up by a detector and automatically set the fire alarm off. This is ideal for a work environment where people are not always present.
Proper installation of fire alarm systems is vital as this
will be the indicator for people to call for help. A competent person
should be assigned to conduct inspections and check on a weekly basis to
ensure that they are working. Depending on the size of a business,
full-service checks should be carried out once up to four times a year.
This depends on the complexity of the system installed.
It’s
very important that your staff know what the procedures are to take
appropriate action as soon as an alert is sounded. This is why it’s
imperative that a Fire Emergency Plan is in place with key personnel
fully trained to carry out the plan.
Reasons to install business fire alarm systems include:
- Save lives – your main priority is to keep you and your employees safe. Without warnings like sirens, bells and smoke detectors, it would be difficult to identify the danger.
- Reduce property loss – The quicker the danger can be identified, the quicker the fire services can tend to the fire and extinguish it and prevent it from further spreading which also means that you can get your business up and running again a lot sooner.
- Lower Insurance Costs – You could be entitled to lower insurance rates. This tells insurance companies that you’re taking precautions.
- UK regulations require all business and non-domestic premises to have suitable fire safety equipment in place, this includes a smoke/heat detector and fire alarms. Businesses may require different types of fire detection equipment depending on the size of the premises and the nature of the business.
In conclusion, the main aim of installing business fire alarm systems is to prevent loss of life and to remember that accidents do happen. It’s best not to wait until it’s too late and to simply take precautions.
I wanted to thank you for explaining why business fire alarm systems are important. I had no idea that manual systems could be good for a specific working environment where people are present. I’m kind of interested to learn if manual systems can be very large or if they are generally very small.