Dry Riser Testing in Birmingham
Book a free survey and get a fixed price in writing. No survey fee, no travel charge, and an emergency line that answers outside working hours.
- 49 miles from our yard in Kettering
- ISO 9001 certified and LPCB approved
- Covering B1 to B9
Birmingham: photograph by Stephen JG, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.
What we do in Birmingham
Designed, installed, tested and certified by us. Nothing subcontracted, and the same standard whatever the postcode.
Design and installation
New systems, extensions and upgrades, designed, installed and commissioned.
Fire sprinkler system design and installation
Sprinkler servicing
The full BS EN 12845 routine, from the weekly gauge and alarm check to the annual service.
Fire sprinkler servicing and maintenance
Sprinkler tanks
The water supply behind the system, inspected, cleaned and replaced when it is past it.
Sprinkler tank service, maintenance and replacement
Fire pumps
Electric and diesel sets proved under flow, not just started and signed off.
Fire pump servicing, testing and maintenance
24/7 emergency
A leak, a failed pump or a discharged head, answered out of hours.
Emergency sprinkler and riser repair
Dry risers
Six-monthly inspection and the annual pressure test, with the certificate your fire risk assessment asks for.
Dry riser testing and servicing
Wet risers
Charged risers, their pumps and their tanks, tested together because they only work together.
Wet riser servicing, testing and pump maintenanceWhat this costs, and what moves the price Wet, dry, pre-action and deluge explained
Fire protection in Birmingham
The second city, and the biggest market on our regular runs. Birmingham has had a sustained high-rise residential boom alongside a deep manufacturing and industrial base and a large city centre commercial core. Tall buildings mean risers, and risers mean a testing regime with a hard interval.
Where we tend to end up: the high-rise residential going up across the city centre, the Jewellery Quarter and Digbeth, and the manufacturing and distribution estates around Aston and the Business Park.
A dry riser above 18 metres is not optional and neither is its test: six-monthly visual, annual pressure test at 12 bar held for 15 minutes under BS 9990. It is the single most commonly missed interval we see.
Buildings this applies to
- High-rise residential and build-to-rent
- City centre offices and commercial
- Manufacturing and industrial premises
- Student accommodation and hotels
What is actually built in Birmingham
Birmingham is the second city and the biggest market we work in. It is also, measurably, where most of our search demand comes from: the city and the West Midlands around it draw many times the interest that Kettering does. So this is not a page written to fill a map. It is written because this is where the work is.
What Birmingham has that almost nowhere else does at this scale is a sustained high-rise residential and build-to-rent boom sitting directly on top of a deep manufacturing and industrial base. Tall buildings mean risers, and risers mean a testing regime with a hard interval and no discretion in it. The manufacturing estates around Aston mean process risk and continuous operation at the same time.
Add the city centre commercial core, the Jewellery Quarter and Digbeth, and a large stock of student accommodation and hotels, and a single Birmingham portfolio can span four different standards on four different intervals.
Why this matters in Birmingham
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Above 18 metres the riser is not optional and neither is its test
BS 9990 sets a six-monthly visual inspection and an annual pressure test at 12 bar held for 15 minutes. It is the single most commonly missed interval we see anywhere, and in Birmingham the usual cause is a change of managing agent where the schedule did not follow the contract.
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Build-to-rent towers carry risers and sprinklers together
A modern residential tower commonly has a wet or dry riser and a BS 9251 sprinkler system, which are two regimes with two intervals and two sets of records. Servicing the building to one schedule leaves one of them unproved.
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Manufacturing plant cannot simply stop
The industrial estates carry process risk and continuous production. The annual becomes a planning exercise: zone by zone, around shift patterns, with the isolation agreed in writing before an engineer arrives.
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Student accommodation and hotels run on their own calendars
Student blocks empty on an academic cycle, which is the obvious isolation window. Hotels never empty, so the work goes overnight. Same standard, completely different diaries.
The systems Birmingham actually has
Riser testing first, dry and wet, then sprinkler servicing. Installation happens here but the defining work is proving the testing regime on tall buildings that have often been through more than one managing agent.
Getting there: Forty-nine miles, on the M6 and A45, so a Birmingham visit is planned rather than spontaneous. Scheduled testing and installation are straightforward and we are in the city regularly. If what you need is an engineer within the hour, a Birmingham-based contractor will beat us, and we would rather say so than take the contract.
Not sure which standard your Birmingham building is held to?
It is a survey question rather than a paperwork one, and the survey is free. We read the building and the policy rather than assuming from the postcode.
The work, not the town
These are our own jobs rather than stock photographs. We have not claimed any of them were taken in Birmingham, because that is not something we would be able to show you.
All 52 photographsWorth reading before you ring
Birmingham questions, answered
Our Birmingham block is over 18 metres. What is compulsory?
A dry riser, and its testing regime: a six-monthly visual inspection and an annual pressure test at 12 bar held for 15 minutes, under BS 9990. It is the single most commonly missed interval we see, usually because the building changed managing agent and the schedule did not follow.
You are based in Kettering. Does the distance affect the service?
It is 49 miles, so a Birmingham visit is planned rather than spontaneous. Scheduled testing and installation are straightforward and we are in the city regularly. If what you need is an engineer within the hour, a Birmingham contractor will beat us and we will tell you that rather than take the contract.
Want a price for this building?
An engineer walks the plant room, counts what is actually there and writes it up. The survey is free, the figure is firm, and it holds for thirty days. No obligation either way.
Where Birmingham is on our patch
49 miles from our yard in Kettering, inside the ring we are in most weeks.
Towns near Birmingham
We cover all of England from our base in Kettering, so if your building is between two of these it makes no difference to us. Distances are straight-line, from Birmingham.
Approved, and audited on a schedule.
Two certifications, and the first one is the reason we could apply for the second. ISO 9001 is a precondition for LPCB approval, so this is a sequence rather than a collection.
ISO 9001:2015
Certified by BRE Global, accredited by UKAS
An audited quality management system. It means the way a job is planned, recorded and signed off is itself inspected by somebody independent, on a schedule.
LPCB approved
Loss Prevention Certification Board
The approval UK insurers look for on sprinkler work. A system installed by an LPCB approved contractor counts as genuine risk mitigation on your policy; one installed by anybody else may not.
Working to BS EN 12845, BS 9251 and BS 9990. If your insurer or fire risk assessor wants the certificates themselves, ring us and we will send them over.
Tell us the building. We will tell you what it is due.
No survey fee to find out where you stand. Describe the site and we will tell you which intervals apply and what the visit involves.