Fire Safety Installations in buildings must be capable of operating to performance standards in the event of a fire. As a building owner, leaser, agent and/or manager of your premises you must know if your building has prescribed Fire Safety Installations and what your obligations are to maintain them.

When it comes to your fire-safety installations, prevention through quality services is a better alternative to a heightened risk of serious damage if there is a fire incident.

When performing routine maintenance for prescribed fire safety installations, Olympic Fire Services are often met with queries, ranging from what the installations are through to how often these need to be maintained in buildings. We answer some of these queries in our below guide to Routine Maintenance and how to avoid defects at your premises.

Routine Maintenance

Prescribed Fire Safety Installations should be maintained and inspected regularly; within industry this is called Routine Maintenance. By carrying out regular routine maintenance checks on your equipment it will be more reliable, safe to use when required, and less likely to need expensive repairs in the long run.

Routine Maintenance is made up of:

• Exit signage
• Emergency Lighting
• Fire Extinguishers
• Fire Hose Reels
• Fire Hydrants
• Fire Indicator Panels
• Smoke Alarms

These prescribed Fire Safety Installations must be kept in accordance with the Queensland Development Code, MP6.1 by a qualified technician and company both holding a QBCC Licence. To ensure the routine maintenance of your premises is kept up to date, refer to the Olympic Fire Services frequency schedule here.

Who is responsible to ensure that my property is compliant?

If you are an owner, a business or an individual, that is occupying, or managing a building in Queensland, you have a legal obligation to ensure the safety of any person in that building in the event of a fire or other emergency.

What am I allowed to alter when it comes to my Fire Door?

Nothing, you are best to seek advice from your Maintenance Contractor.

Defects

If routine maintenance is not carried out frequently or correctly, this can lead to defects arising between inspections periods. As per the Building Fire Safety Regulations 2008 there are three defect categories:

Critical Defect: likely to have an adverse impact on the safety of either the occupants and the building and must be addressed within 30 days.

Non-Conformance Defect: a missing or incorrect feature that does not affect the system but is required to facilitate the ongoing routine maintenance.

Non-critical defect: a system impairment or faulty component not likely to critically affect the operation of the system.

Do I have to fix all defects noted onsite?

Yes, the only items you do not have to address are items that come through as a recommendation.

How do we avoid costly Passive Fire Defects?

Understand the legislation surrounding Passive Fire and ensure that any contractor that performs works on your site does so with the legislation in mind. If there are any doubts seek advice from a Licenced Contractor before works commence.

Olympic Fire Services specialises in routine maintenance, rectification works related to Routine Maintenance Defects and Fire Safety Advisory works.

This article was contributed by Olympic Fire Services.

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