Testing fire alarm systems regularly is a necessity, but are you doing it correctly? According to official British fire safety regulations, your fire alarm should be tested weekly. On top of this, a full fire alarm system inspection should be carried out once every six months.

Below, we’ll look at how often you should be testing the alarms in your building, who’s responsible, and how to test them.

More...

Fires are a health and safety issue which impact each and every one of us, be it at home, at work or in public spaces. In order to ensure that the conditions for preventing fires from spreading are in place, it is essential to provide and maintain reliable equipment, particularly in areas which present particulalrly high risks in the event of a fire.

Although having appropriate fire extinguishers in designated areas is a great start, it is not enough to simply have these in place, and later forget about them unless they are needed. Fire extinguishers require regular inspection and servicing by professionals, in order to ensure that they are in proper working order, and have not been compromised in any way. If unfortunate circumstances did cause a fire to occur, you would want to confident in the knowledge that your extinguisher is ready to use, with no issues preventing it from serving its indented purpose.

Here are a few essential steps that need to be followed whilst performing fire extinguisher maintenance:

Perform a Visual Inspection of the Extinguisher 

The person responsible for fire safety should carry out visual checks on a monthly basis at the very least, with more frequent checks taking place where circumstances require. Your visual check should consist of the following:

• Ensure that the extinguisher is located in the correct area, and is visible to those who may need to use it.
• Check that the instructions are also clear to see, and unobstructed.
• Assess the parts to ensure that it has not been damaged or operated.
• Read the pressure gauge/indicator to check it is within safe operational limits.

Arrange Corrective Action

If the extinguisher has been tampered with, or the responsible party suspects that it is not in working order, this issue should be addressed immediately, with corrective action being arranged as soon as possible. 

Oversee Professional Servicing

Professional fire safety experts should always be used to perform detailed inspections on the extinguishers. The frequency of these inspections will depend on the type of extinguisher in question. 

Accurately Record Maintenance

As is the case with any health and safety procedure, it is essential to ensure that the processes of maintaining your fire extinguisher is also accurately recorded. To do this you will need to use fire extinguisher maintenance labels. Here's a closer look at the recording system we provide here at Label Source as an example:

(fire extinguisher maintenance labels, supplied in packs of 50)

This label should be used to record the details of the inspection, including the date, name of the inspector and weight of the extinguisher.

To find out more about fire safety, check out our previous blogs! To see our full range of equipment inspection labels, click here.

We all know how a spring clean sometimes ends up: piles and piles of black bags all over your apartment, stuffed full of the leaflets, letters, newspapers and clutter you have managed to accumulate over the last year. This has led to fire safety experts asking people to make sure that their fire escape routes are clear when they are having a spring clean.

Even though this campaign is primarily aimed at homeowners and tenants, we thought it would be a good idea to take this opportunity to remind landlords about fire safety procedures and what they can do to keep tenants safe.

Below we have outlined 7 important fire safety tips that will help to keep your tenants safe while they are living in your building:

1. Make sure you have conducted a full risk assessment and made an emergency plan. Ensure that all of your tenants have access to a fire escape route, and that they are clear on what to do in the event of a fire.
    
2. Make sure your fire detection system is working effectively, and that everyone who lives in your building knows how to use it. It is important that you have smoke alarms located inside your tenants' flats and not just in public or communal areas.
    
3. If any of your tenants suffer from a disability, ensure your building is properly equipped to support them. For example, you may need to provide them with a flat on the ground floor, and make sure that the fire exit is easily accessible for them.
    
4. Ask your tenants to be vigilant of fire risks and report any potential hazards they encounter to you immediately. This also means that you will have to respond to these concerns immediately. Fires can cause hundreds of pounds' worth of damage to your property, not to mention potentially fatal injuries to your tenants. It is important to ensure that you are not putting their lives at risk through negligence.
    
5. Perform checks on your properties to ensure that your tenants are keeping the fire doors shut and the exit routes clear of obstacles and rubbish. If you find that your tenants are blocking the fire exits, clear the exit and kindly remind them of the risks that they are putting themselves in by blocking the exits.
    
6. Check your fire safety signs and emergency lighting. Make sure that the fire exits are clearly marked throughout your building. If you find that the signs are damaged, or vandalised, you can buy replacement fire safety signs from our fire sign department. Browse our signs here.
    
7. Make sure all the fire extinguishers are in good working condition; this includes the fire extinguishers and fire blankets that are provided in your tenants' flats. Make sure your tenants know where they are located so they can access them in the event of an emergency 

Here at Label Source we take fire safety extemely seriously, which is why we stock a huge range of fire safety products, including:

• Access and Escape Safety Signs
• Access and Emergency Safety Signs
• Disabled Guidance Safety Signs
• NHS Fire and Emergancy Safety Signs
• Fire Equipment Safety Signs
• Projecting Fire Equipment Safety Signs

If you require a specific sign but cannot locate it within our fire safety sign department, please contact us on 0800 3761 693 where a member of our customer service team will be happy to assist you.

There has been outrage in Bradford City Hall after recent visit from health and safety officials.

The bosses of City hall have advised that all contraband appliances will be confiscated, however, the office is refusing to hand over their cherished toaster after their bosses inform them that the toaster could potentially set off smoke alarms in the grade-I listed building essentially banning the workers from making toast in their office.

Even though this may seem absurd, it is important to take sensible fire safety measures in the work place. Banning toasters because they could set off smoke detectors may seem extreme, but if they smoke detectors are set off, a full building evacuation takes place, wasting your company’s time and more importantly, the fire services time.

It is important that you test your fire alarms regularly, and ensure that your employees are knowledgeable on the fire evacuation procedure. It is important that your office has fire exits and escape routes clearly labelled.

Click here to view our range of fire safety products.

The employees at the Bradford city are also banned from using fans, portable heaters, hairdryers and their personal rubbish bins are also being removed and replaced with a large recycling bin, because they fail to meet the local authority’s eco-friendly standard. Employees have instead been advised to dress appropriately for the time of year, with the aim of saving energy.

Here, at Label Source we strongly believe that companies should ensure that they have a clear environmental management system in place.  It is important that, as a company, you are making sure that you are recycling as much as you can, and only printing out emails and documents if it is necessary.

We stock a wide range of environmental signs and tapes, here at label source, including recycling signs, waste segregation signs, WRAP recycling signs, Contaminated Land Signs, Resource Conservation signs & Notices and more. Click here to view our full range.

If you have any questions regarding Label Sources products or require more information about our signs, tapes and labels, please  contact us by telephoning 0800 3761 693 or emailing a member of our customer service team at info@labelsource.co.uk

We've heared of some pretty creative ways to teach fire safety, but this 'Fire Safety Theme Park' in Tianjin, China has to be the most bizarre and inventive of them all!

Named 119 after the Chinese emergency number, the park features a maze that is filled with orange smoke in order to emulate the conditions of a real fire. Visitors are instructed to attempt to vacate the maze in 30 seconds or under, while covering their mouths and noses as they would have to do to prevent carbon monoxide innhilation. Another feature encourages people to have a go at aiming a fire hose, demonstrating the physical strength required to become a firefighter.

Intended to be as informative as possible, the park also teaches its visitors about fire safety procedures, as well as the history of the fire service. This comes in the wake of the Tanjin warehouse chemical explosions, which brought the importance of fire safety into the public consciousness. 

Although it is great to see that something negative has translated into a positive, productive action, it shouldn't take incidents like those of the Tanjin explosion to prompt people to act and take fire safety seriously! Although the 2015 statistics have not been released yet, in 2013-14 there were 22,000 recorded fires in non-dwelling buildings throughout the UK, most of which were workplaces and retail units. There were also 322 fire-related deaths in Great Britain during that time, some of which could have been prevented by fire safety awareness.

Part of ensuring the safety of civilians and staff is displaying clear fire safety signs, which give warnings and instructions regarding the correct safety procedures to follow in the event of a fire. Our equipment can help you deliver the message of fire safety, and is far simpler than building your own theme park!