Here at JCW we pride ourselves on offering the highest level of service to our customers to ensure their premises remain fully compliant and that their systems comply to the current legislation. Probably the most important system in any building is the fire alarm system. With ever changing technology and legislation JCW decided the best way to keep our engineers up to date on both was to build our own in-house fire alarm training facility in Leicester, incorporating all the different types of panels and systems that our engineers work on, on a daily basis.

During the COVID pandemic over the last 2 years, it became even more important to have fully operational and compliant fire alarm systems as buildings, especially retail units and offices, were left empty for weeks, sometimes even months. In occupied buildings fires are often spotted by the occupants, but when the building is empty the risk of a fire is no less. During lock down 90% of our call outs were for faults on fire alarm systems or false activations, so sending out an engineer with the correct knowledge was paramount.

Technology

Fire alarm systems use all different types of technology, with the same aim - to detect fire or smoke and to alert the occupants.

Our training facility consists of conventional, addressable, and bi-wire systems covering a range of detection, including automatic fire detection, manual call points, aspirating systems, beam detectors and heat tape.

In our facility there are a total of 8 different systems covering a range of manufacturers and protocols, in which are all interfaced to allow us to simulate different scenarios. They can be set up to simulate buildings with multiple floors or one panel acting as a landlord and every other panel as a tenant. We can programme different cause and effects to cover every scenario that we could come across for our clientele. This enables us to train our engineers, not only on the basic knowledge of testing a system, but also for in-depth programming and commissioning.

Legislation

The training our engineers are given is not just on testing and commissioning but also on the latest legislation and design knowledge. It is important not just to test what is there but also to check that the system installed complies with the standard to which it is designed. Obvious items that are missing from most premises are zone charts and the wrong isolating switches installed for the power supply to the panel, these are just two that we come across daily, when we first start looking after a property. Each engineer is given a booklet that we produced ourselves, with all design and guidance information the engineer will need to insure that the system they are testing is also compliant from a design perspective.

If you are looking for an experienced service provider to maintain your fire alarm systems, you can rest assured that JCW will offer a tailored solution to meet your requirements, through our team of fully qualified and trained engineers.

Contact us now to find out more.

To find out more about the regulations regarding the testing of life safety systems in the workplace -

Download our free eBook - A Guide to Life Safety Systems.