Gus Ferguson asks a question about a fire alarm system and its certification in terms of bedroom sounder levels. It is answered by the NICEIC (Theme – Fire, Safety & Security):
Question: We are currently completing Certificates of Design, Installation and Commissioning of a fire detection and alarm system for several domestic properties.
Our installation engineers are leaving the 'Bedroom Sound Level' section as N/A, because they say that the smoke detectors and sounders they are installing are Aico devices, for which they have tabulated figures for sound levels at various distances from each unit.
As the Qualified Supervisor, my take on this is that this should, at least, be agreed with the client. I also think that a note stating this fact be appended to each certificate - so that a third party, such as our NICEIC area engineer, can understand what has been agreed.
Can you please advise?
Answer: The certificate is there to provide confirmation that the system is compliant with the current regulations. If an N/A is put on the certificate, then that specific requirement does not apply to that installation.
However, the manufacturer's information does need to be attached to that document should there be an issue with the integrity of the installation.
The certificate exists for the person responsible for the installation to provide as much information about the system that they have installed as possible. It should aslo confirm that the system does comply with standards. Therefore, a comment such as a sounder decibel output given as per manufacturer's data attached should be added. Then number the sheet of this information to make it an integral part of the certification.
This is the one opportunity to confirm exact detail rather than allowing for assumption on anyone's part as to compliance with the system.
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