Fire safety and prevention is vital in the home. It can be the difference between life and death, literally. There are different requirements for different types of building and here’s a brief overview.

Fire safety at work

There are Health & Safety guidelines and regulations put in place by the government to protect people. Every place of work or non-domestic building should have a ‘responsible’ person, whose job it is to ensure the guidelines are adhered to. If you’re the owner, employer or landlord, for example, this responsibility falls to you. The role includes putting appropriate fire systems in place, communicating these to anyone who uses the premises, regular risk assessments, training and a plan of what to do in the event of a fire. You’ll find lots more information on the gov.co.uk website.

Fire safety at home

The level of fire protection in the home is entirely up to the homeowner – there are rules and regulations for landlords, as above, but not for private home owners. The fire service is called out to around 600,000 fires every year of which around 50,000 are in the home. There are no statistics as to how many houses have smoke, heat or optical alarms fitted, but bearing in mind you are twice as likely to die in a house fire where no alarm is present, and it’s a wonder not every house is fitted with some sort of warning device.

Escape route

An exercise that every homeowner should go through is to plan an escape route in the event of a fire. Consider the ages and mobility of everyone in the house and make sure they know what the plan is and that they can stick to. It will also help you decide what sort of fire alarm system you need – where should alarms be positioned, do you need those with lights? Get young children involved by drawing a route together and practice it – you have fire drills at work so why not adapt this principle for home?

Containing a fire

It is possible to minimise the spread and damage caused by fire within a building. A traditional sprinkler system acts by smothering everything in vast quantities of water, the antidote to fire. A new, highly effective method involves high pressure water mist; it works by turning the water into tiny droplets of steam that attack both the heat of the fire and the oxygen which fuels it. This system uses less water than a conventional sprinkler system, is less disruptive to fit and will minimise water damage.

TM Services supply, fit and maintain a market leading high pressure water mist system, Puck, to residential and commercial properties across the UK. We have many years of experience in fitting such systems and can highly recommend the Puck: it is unobtrusive, economical, self-testing and is fire tested to BS 8458 residential water mist standard and BS 9252 sprinkler standard. For more information, call us on  0208 699 8113 or email enquiries@tmservicesltd.co.uk.

We’d be happy to answer any questions you may have.