Fire safety question..

[Diagro]

Hello all,

I can't find the answer online or in documentation for fire safety.

My question which I hope someone knows the answer:

Is there a time limit of how long it should take for a fire alarm to sound once manually activated?

My works alarm took approx 4 mins to sound after it was pressed... I feel this is ridiculous. They say its so they can get to the unit to check if its a false alarm before it sounds. Which... Cannot be true, because if its a false alarm, why did they allow it to sound.... Huh.

I'm hoping there is something somewhere I can present to them, to ensure they update their obviously antiquated system.

 

[Rroff]

From a quick google seems an up to 5 minute delay is permitted, dependant on the type/purpose of premises, as long as it goes off immediately on a second trigger. Seems a bit ridiculous but I guess the idea is if it is fast spreading the second trigger will happen quickly.

EDIT: Don't think I've ever worked anywhere where pressing an emergency alarm button didn't immediately set it off though.

 

[Angilion]

[..] My works alarm took approx 4 mins to sound after it was pressed... I feel this is ridiculous. They say its so they can get to the unit to check if its a false alarm before it sounds. Which... Cannot be true, because if its a false alarm, why did they allow it to sound.... Huh. [..]

That bit could be true - they didn't check it in time, so it sounded. Or they checked it but didn't find the cause within the 4 minutes, so it sounded. Or they checked it and thought it was a false alarm but allowed it to sound in case they were wrong.

It does sound a bit half-hearted, though I don't know if it meets the minimum legal requirements.

For comparison, in my workplace any triggering of any of the many sensors or manual activation points immediately sounds a stage 1 alarm (very audible everywhere in the building) and unless suspended within 30 seconds automatically goes into the stage 2 alarm (even more audible everywhere and accompanied by a demand for immediate evacuation). Everything is tested weekly, full on screaming alarm repeated over and over again. 30 seconds is of course useless unless the alarm is triggered very close to the control panel and someone who can suspend it is right there at the time. 4 minutes makes a lot more sense in that context, but on the other hand 4 minutes is a long time if there really is a fire.

Of course, the problem with that other end of the scale is that nobody takes alarms seriously any more. After the first few hundred false alarms, anyone will become conditioned to not care about them. That's hardly a new idea - the oldest known writing about it is ~2600 years old and it doubtless goes back further than that.

 

[AS_Platinum]

Depends of the fire risk assessment. When commisioned, if there is a delay it will go down as a deviation.

Schools are a massive pain especially in ones that are full of little sods that think it's funny to fully evac the whole place, but it's about getting it right for the type of building and it's occupants. Student accomadation is another pain!

 

[rubberduck]

Ring the fire brigade?

 

[Diagro]

Depends of the fire risk assessment. When commisioned, if there is a delay it will go down as a deviation.

Schools are a massive pain especially in ones that are full of little sods that think it's funny to fully evac the whole place, but it's about getting it right for the type of building and it's occupants. Student accomadation is another pain!

It's a school. In my mind, it should sound right away due to child safeguarding.

 

[Dis86]

Yup. You're allowed and in some cases encouraged to have a delay to limit false reports.

 

[sideways14a]

It's a school. In my mind, it should sound right away due to child safeguarding.

Unfortunately all that will happen is lots of false alarms.

Making a strong example of anyone that falsely sets of an alarm would be my choice, ie taken out the back and shot (are we still allowed to do that in this country?)

 

[vanpeebles]

I work in a school and we always evacuate fairly quickly, recently there has been a ton of alarm testing, and during a staff training day a toaster caught fire and everyone stayed in There was various unhappy bunnies after that

 

[wolfie138]

when a legit fire alarm went off in my old offices people sat around for over a minute bitching about when someone was going to turn it off. followed by two minutes of "is this a real one then..?" and followed by an evac out into a random clump in the street because no one had read up on where the assembly point was.
sometimes the better option is to just let people burn.

 

[vanpeebles]

See that sounds very funny.

 

[eddiemcgarrigle]

It is illegal to tamper with a fire alarm before the Fire Service turn up. This is so it may be ascertained exactly where the alarm is and if there is any fire.

 

[sideways14a]

Chuck a smoke bomb on next practice, its funny how much quicker the building will empty.