With sprinkler maintenance a vital part of fire safety, Ian Walters explains why they are so important and highlights ongoing issues arising from inspections
Given the legal obligation on the responsible person of a building to ensure that the fire safety systems are suitably serviced and maintained following Part 2, Article 17 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order (RRO) 2005, the importance of proper maintenance cannot be too highly emphasised. This article will look at why maintenance of sprinkler systems is important and provide examples of areas for improvement that have arisen from our inspections.
Legislation and standards
The introduction of a ‘golden thread’ of information for buildings was a recommendation by Dame Judith Hackitt in her report, Building a Safer Future, to support duty-holders in the design, construction, and management of their buildings, to ensure the information needed to keep the building and the people in it safe is available throughout the life cycle of the building. It is about the right people having the right information when they need it and the right people are those who require the information to carry out a function. For them it is essential this information is current and kept up to date.
The golden thread also has to run through the design and build phase and into the occupation of a building. People managing the system can only do so properly if they understand what it is they are working with, and have a record of both how the building was designed and any subsequent changes made to the system afterwards.
This article is specific to the maintenance of a building’s fire protection sprinkler system. Maintenance of sprinkler systems is specified in the LPC Rules/BS EN 12845 and TB203. There are other standards such as FM Global, NFPA etc, but for simplicity, this article will concentrate on LPC Rules/BS EN 12845.
Independent third-party annual sprinkler inspections are specified within the LPC Rules/BS EN12845 and TB203 (Care and Maintenance of Sprinkler Systems).
Sprinkler system maintenance reports form part of the golden thread and provide a written record that the system is being maintained. They should not be tucked away into a folder, but should be reviewed and acted upon so that any deficiencies in the system are rectified and faults repaired.
Maintenance provision
Sprinkler system service and maintenance routines are specified within the LPC Rules/BS EN 12845 and TB203, at weekly, monthly, quarterly, half yearly, annually, biannually, five yearly, ten yearly intervals and at 25 years. Some routines require little specialist knowledge while others are more complex and must only be carried out by a specialist sprinkler servicing contractor.
At some sites, all routines are carried out by specialist sprinkler servicing contractors appointed by the user (or their agents), whereas on other sites, the user carries out the simpler (weekly/monthly) routines themselves, which is acceptable providing they have been trained and are competent to do so, with the servicing contractor carrying out the more demanding routines. Specialist tasks such as fire pump servicing must be carried out by personnel trained specifically to perform these tasks.
Sprinkler servicing contractors are companies that specialise in servicing and maintaining sprinkler systems. The user cannot be expected to know whether the service being provided by the contractor is fully compliant with the standard, as the contractor is the expert, not the end user. It is therefore important that the user selects a contractor who has been trained and is competent to carry out the works.
The FPA does not recommend any contractor in this regard but would suggest that the user selects contractors who have achieved accreditation on a recognised approval scheme, such as those operated by LPCB, IFC, or FIRAS.
Inspections and findings
When we return to a site to carry out a new inspection, we do find action has been taken on many of our observations. For example, valves have been serviced/replaced, new sprinkler heads installed, and maintenance procedures updated and improved. However, there are still a number of issues that we repeatedly come across during our inspections.
Note that as our inspections are confidential, we have kept the source material anonymous.
Identifying the responsible person
The rules require that an individual person and deputy should be appointed by the user to ensure the system remains in a working condition, with their name, address, and telephone number prominently displayed in the sprinkler valve room. This is hardly ever the case, and it is not uncommon to find there are no details. Identifying the person who is responsible for the sprinkler system ought to be straightforward.
Record keeping
A list of information to be held on site (to form part of the golden thread) is specified in the LPC Rules and includes:
- a Certificate of Conformity or completion certificate, stating the design standard to which the system has been designed and installed, and any deviations from the standard (which must be agreed prior to construction by stakeholders such insurers, fire authority etc)
- as-installed drawings and calculations
- operation and maintenance (O&M) instructions
- service and maintenance reports.
Records are normally kept by the user in hard-copy (paper) form, or in some instance digitally, a practice which is becoming more common place as technology evolves. However, the information is often missing, incomplete or generic rather than specific to the project. Surprisingly, this can be the case even on sprinkler systems which have recently been commissioned. Any modifications must also be accurately documented and whenever there are changes to the sprinkler system, these documents should be updated.
The standard of maintenance work
The standard of maintenance varies widely and whilst there is normally a maintenance regime in place, not all the procedures specified in the LPC Rules are carried out. The wording in the maintenance agreement between the user and the sprinkler servicing contractor can be vague, and sometimes does not state what work will be carried out, when it will be carried out, etc.
The maintenance agreement should include all of the requirements of the LPC Rules. The end user may not be aware that the system is not being serviced fully in accordance with the requirements of the standard, and as such the end user must rely on the sprinkler servicing contractor as the expert.
Competency/training
Whilst some of the simpler tasks (weekly/monthly) can be carried out in-house, we often find the person carrying out these tasks has received no formal training. A typical scenario is that they have inherited the job from a previous person without being given any proper training. It is important that even simple tasks are carried out correctly and properly recorded.
Weekly/monthly routines generally need rudimentary records to be taken, even these are occasionally to be found scribbled on scraps of paper rather than in a proper, logged format.
People working in a sprinklered building are often unaware that a sprinkler system is installed and have no idea what to do in the event of a leak, or if a sprinkler head operated. There have been instances of people mistaking sprinkler heads with heat or smoke detectors.
A poorly maintained valve (left) and a dirty and damaged sprinkler head (right) are examples of some of the issues found during sprinkler inspections
Review of Hazard
Review of Hazard is an ongoing process which must be carried out at least every 13 weeks, to highlight changes which can adversely affect the operation of the sprinklers such as modifications to the building, the installation of new partitions, changes to the type of goods being stored, storage methods, or installation of obstructions banks of pipework, cable trays, ductwork, etc.
Change of usage should be identified, so if for example, the user starts to store aerosols or idle wooden/plastic pallets (both of these risks have their own Technical Bulletins), this should be identified without delay as additional protection measures would be required.
We find that the user has often not been informed that the introduction of electrical vehicle charging points and the presence of electric vehicles with their lithium-ion batteries, which are highly flammable, has increased the classification of car parks from an Ordinary Hazard risk to a High Hazard risk, requiring larger water supplies.
Performing a thorough Review of Hazard would, in most cases, have highlighted sooner many of the observations which we make during our annual inspection. Where operations do not generally change (for example in a school), three of the four reviews can be undertaken by the user (providing they have been trained and are competent to do so) and submitted to the specialist servicing contractor for review. At least one review per year must be carried out by a competent person (such as an engineer from a sprinkler contractor).
Review of Hazard is one of the most overlooked procedures. Most specialist service reports omit it or include a small section within their reports which amounts to little more than a tick-box.
We often identify non-compliances which ought to have been picked up by the specialist servicing contractor during their service visit and brought to the attention of the end user. It is not always clear why the service engineer didn’t raise the points in their report, especially as there could be financial benefits to the contractors generated through additional rectification work. It may be that they have not received sufficient training to identify many common non-compliances.
Limitations of the sprinkler system
Due to a lack of training or instruction, users are often unaware there are many limitations within the LPC Rules which must be adhered to. We often find that although a clear space must be maintained below sprinkler heads (500mm for Ordinary Hazard Systems, 1000mm for High Hazard systems), goods are stacked up to the sprinkler head. This can cause delays in the operation of the sprinkler in the event of a fire and may also impede the water spray distribution of the head when it has operated.
The height of stored goods is limited depending upon the category of the goods and the method in which they are stored, however these are often exceeded by the user. In warehouses, the user will often install additional storage racks, or additional levels of racking so that more goods can be stored, or store products with a higher category, which can then compromise the sprinkler protection.
We have seen cases where the end user has modified storage racks, installing solid or slatted shelving into rack systems, causing additional obstruction to the sprinklers. The user does this without any consideration of the detrimental effects upon the sprinkler system.
Physical damage
The physical things we find are often simple to address, such as goods attached to the sprinkler pipework, and to sprinkler heads themselves. It is common to find sprinkler heads which have been damaged, overpainted, or are covered in deposits. It is a requirement that sprinkler heads are inspected at least annually and cleaned or replaced as necessary, but it is clear that sprinklers are not cleaned regularly enough. Pipework and lagging are also often in disrepair.
Handwheels should be strapped and padlocked. This is simple to do but is quite often missing. Equipment, such as gauges and valves are often located in awkward locations so that it is not easy to reach (sometimes it can be unsafe to do so).
Non-sprinklered areas
Whilst the standard allows the omission of sprinklers in some areas, known as Permitted & Necessary Exceptions, we find protection has been omitted from areas which should have been provided with sprinkler protection.
Specialist advice
For reasons unknown, users have occasionally ignored recommendations made by the sprinkler servicing contractors on their service reports, such as advice to replace a faulty valve, damaged sprinkler head, or to make repairs to damaged trace heating and lagging.
Water supplies
Water supplies are critical. Without them, the system will not work, so they need to be maintained and tested regularly. We find they are not always tested properly, tested too infrequently, or occasionally not tested at all. The test equipment is sometimes missing, or in poor condition with broken gauges and flowmeters, and test readings are often poorly recorded or not recorded at all.
Conclusion
The LPC Rules/BS EN 12845 and TB203 specify the minimum requirements for system design and maintenance, and it is therefore concerning that maintenance practices often fall short of these minimum requirements. As well as being a legal obligation, maintenance of the sprinkler system is essential to ensure the system can perform properly in the event of a fire.
It is of vital important that this maintenance should comply fully with all of the requirements of the Rules, those carrying it out should be trained and competent to do so, and all works conducted should be suitably recorded as part of the golden thread of information.
For more details on the independent sprinkler system inspection services offered by the FPA, visit: https://www.thefpa.co.uk/sprinkler-services/sprinkler-system-inspections.
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Ian Walters is a Principal Consultant at the Fire Protection Association