Fire Sprinkler Servicing in Kettering
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.
- Our own yard is in this town
- ISO 9001 certified and LPCB approved
- Covering NN14, NN15, NN16
Kettering: photograph by Dave Bevis, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.
What we do in Kettering
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 Kettering
Our own town, and a good illustration of the problem. Kettering has Victorian and Edwardian industrial buildings from the boot and shoe trade converted into flats and offices, sitting alongside new distribution sheds off the A14. The two ends of that range need very different suppression work, and a conversion is where the paperwork most often has a hole in it.
Where we tend to end up: Telford Way and the Kettering Business Park estates, the converted boot and shoe factories around the town centre, and the distribution units strung along the A14.
We are based here, so a Kettering call-out does not involve a motorway. It is also where most of our maintenance rounds start, which usually means we can fit an urgent visit around work already booked in the town.
Buildings this applies to
- Converted industrial and former factory buildings
- Distribution and trade units along the A14 corridor
- Residential blocks and care accommodation
- Retail and town centre premises
What is actually built in Kettering
Kettering runs on two building types that could not be further apart. The boot and shoe trade left rows of Victorian and Edwardian factories through the centre, most now converted into flats, studios and offices. Out along the A14 sit distribution and trade units built in the last twenty years. One town, two entirely different suppression problems.
The conversions are the harder half. A converted factory inherits pipework laid out for a floor plan that no longer exists, and the compartmentation changes when the floors are cut up into dwellings. The system often still works; what is usually missing is the paperwork proving the alteration was designed rather than improvised. That gap is what a fire risk assessor finds.
The A14 units are the more predictable half, and the risk there is drift. A shed is designed around the hazard classification of what was in it when it was built. Tenants change, racking goes up, stock changes, and nothing in the roof moves with it.
Why this matters in Kettering
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A conversion inherits somebody else's system
Where a factory has become flats, the residential parts normally fall under BS 9251 while any retained commercial space stays under BS EN 12845. Two standards in one building, and two maintenance regimes. Being serviced entirely to the commercial schedule is the commonest fault we find in Kettering conversions.
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Storage height, not floor area, on the A14
Hazard classification under BS EN 12845 is driven by what is stored and how high. A Telford Way or Kettering Business Park unit that raises its racking can move up a class without a pipe being touched, which leaves the design short of the density it now needs.
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Dry risers in the taller conversions
A converted block over 18 metres needs a dry riser under BS 9990: a six-monthly visual inspection of inlets, outlets and landing valves, and an annual test at 12 bar. In a conversion the inlet cabinet is frequently the thing nobody has opened since handover.
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Weekly checks are only realistic if somebody is close
BS EN 12845 puts a weekly duty on the building, not on the contractor: gauges, an alarm motor test, a pump start test where one is fitted. It is the routine most often skipped, and it is the one we can practically help with here because the yard is on Dickens Drive.
The systems Kettering actually has
Kettering splits roughly down the middle. The A14 and business park units are sprinkler work: annual service, flow switch proving, and a design check whenever the racking or the tenant changes. The town centre conversions are more often riser work, because height rather than storage is what triggers the requirement there.
Getting there: No motorway involved. Kettering is where our maintenance rounds start, so an urgent visit can usually be fitted around work already booked in the town.
Not sure which standard your Kettering 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 Kettering, because that is not something we would be able to show you.
All 52 photographsWorth reading before you ring
Kettering questions, answered
Which parts of Kettering do you cover?
All of it, and it is a short drive rather than a job we have to plan a day around. Telford Way, Kettering Business Park, the A14 units and the converted factory buildings in the centre are all inside ten minutes of our yard on Dickens Drive.
We are a converted factory building. Does that change anything?
Usually yes. A conversion tends to inherit pipework laid out for the original use, and the paperwork is where the hole normally is: the system gets altered during the conversion and the record does not follow it. That is the first thing we look for.
Is the price different because we are in Kettering?
We price the building and the work, not the postcode. Kettering is where our yard is, so there is no travel in it at all. What changes a quotation here is the size of the system and how much of it is accessible, the same as anywhere else.
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 Kettering is on our patch
Our yard is here, at 37 Dickens Drive, Kettering.
Towns near Kettering
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 Kettering.
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.