Extinguishers
Horizon Fire provides a full service for supplying, commissioning and maintaining all types of portable fire extinguishers. This gives you full compliance to both your insurance requirements and legal obligations, as well as giving peace of mind that should they be needed, they work as intended.
It is a legal requirement under the Regulatory Reform Act 2005, that all buildings possess fire extinguishers, but it is also vital that they are correctly maintained and serviced annually to ensure that they remain safe, function correctly and work correctly when needed.
Our extinguisher maintenance starts at £55 for the first 5 units, then a clear and simple unit price.
Our prices are inclusive of all of the required annual service parts. Unlike a number of companies, we will never charge you extra for these necessary items or things such as missing pins, new brackets or replacement parts
Extinguisher FAQs
How many extinguishers should I have?
There’s no set number of units that you should actually have. Instead, the size of the area of coverage and type of risks present are the determining factors. Your fire risk assessment should tell you how many extinguishers you should have and where they should be located. Our service engineers can help guide you to make sure you have the right extinguishers in the right place. Having the wrong type of extinguisher can be almost as dangerous as having none at all.
What is British Standard 5306?
This is the legally binding British standard, governing portable fire extinguishers. It requires an annual service to ensure they operate when required in an emergency situation.
How often should fire extinguishers be serviced?
BS5306 stipulates that a fire extinguisher need to be serviced once each year by a qualified professional. It is also recommended that you should walk around every week to check that all extinguishers are where they should be and that there is no obvious damage to any of the units.
What exactly does the service consist of?
During our annual service your extinguishers will be thoroughly checked for damage or rust. Once weighed (where applicable) the pressure gauges will be tested and items such as tags and o-rings replaced. Finally, the unit will be cleaned down and the service sticker updated.
What happens when the extinguishers are 5/10 years old?
Under the regulations a more comprehensive extended service is needed. Due to the logistical difficulty of emptying extinguisher contents on site, refilling and repressurising, like most companies we now perform a service replacement instead of an ‘extended service’. So once your units have reached their discharge date they will be simply swapped over with a pre-refurbished model. This cost-effective process allows for a much quicker, cleaner and hassle-free service.
Legislation – Visual Inspections and servicing of Fire Extinguishers
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (RRO) places legally enforceable requirements on organisations, where necessary, to safeguard the safety of relevant persons within the premises in the event of fire. The responsible person must “ensure that the premises and any facilities, equipment and devices provided in respect of the premises …are subject to a suitable system of maintenance and are maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair”. Annual Service and Maintenance should be conducted by a competent person.
The “Responsible person” is normally the owner, landlord or business proprietor or a member of staff delegated with responsibility for fire safety. The “competent person” is someone qualified by training and experience to undertake service and maintenance of fire extinguishers.
In addition to annual Servicing it is recommended that the Responsible person carry out visual inspections of all extinguishers and fire safety equipment on a regular basis i.e. at least monthly to determine if the extinguisher has been discharged or damaged.
BS5306:3 Code of Practice for Fire Extinguisher Service and Maintenance provides recommendations on how to conduct a visual inspection as follows.
- Each extinguisher is correctly located in the designated place.
- Each extinguisher is unobstructed and visible.
- The operating instructions of each extinguisher are clean and legible and face outwards.
- Each extinguisher has not been operated and is not obviously damaged or has any missing parts.
- The reading of any pressure gauge or indicator fitted to an extinguisher is within operational and safety limits.
- The seals and tamper indicators of each extinguisher are not broken or missing.
The designated responsible person within the organisation should record the results of this visual inspection and arrange for corrective action, if necessary, by a competent person. If you employ 5 or more people it is also a legal requirement to keep a permanent Record of all servicing, maintenance and inspections for inspection by the Fire Services Inspectorate.
