Question:
Recently, as we were pondering over great amount's of Mcdonalds coffee. The question arose of what should a quarterly inspection consist of ? The following opinions were made 1) Test the lot every time.(my suggestion) 2) All panel and battery tests and all callpoints on all zones, but only a quarter of all automatic detection. 3)All panel and battery tests and a quarter of the devices. ( the idea being that different units are tested on each of the quarterly visit) 4) All panel and battery tests and at least one device per zone. My opinion is that there should be no difference between quarterly and annual inspections.Everything should be tested every visit. How can you in all honesty sign a fire certificate (which is a legal document) without verifing that all systems function as they were specified.Even if you check different devices each quarter, a faulty device could at worst case be overlooked for twelve months. Why go to all the trouble of installing the system to a very high standard. (ie:-L.P.C.) Just to let it all down by not correctly maintaining it ?

Answer: as a Fire Engineer you should know that the requirements are laid down in BS5839 - your bible, where there a large number of "though shalt" as well as quite a few "thou shalt not" there is a subtle difference to a quarterly and an annual - just find it and you will see. as to cost, why not be honest (it don't hurt that much you know), try taking a look at the actual cost of a quarterly visit in man hours, then cost of any consumable materials needed during that visit, add in the travel to/from and that will give you a price to work on (i.e. 5hrs + 2hrs + consumables means that you will really be charging for a full day for which you may charge say Ј250/visit x 3 with the annual costing more because it will take longer and so cost more) remember what was said earlier - be honest, if you can look at your maint contracts and juggle them to do 4 adjacent sites in a day then you should only look to charge for it on that basis. as to how you go about the check, you should by now have a standard check list for such contracts, which is carried out from time to time with the company compentant person in attendance, this ensures you are not snoflaking them and helps to build up confidence in you/your co. this checklist should be either NCR or photocopied so client competant has a copy as well as yourself to comply with H&S legislation. it should include any items that require changing and when signed by client competant used as authority for the cost, enabling an invoice to be raised immediately on receipt in office. as was said on a pure security thread earlier, be open and upfront with the client, show confidence to evince confidence in yourselves and be prepared to answer questions on other items/legislation it will pay good dividends anything else I charge for at my own daily rate