Care home sprinkler systems
A new home, a CQC or fire authority question, or a system nobody has a complete record for.
- ISO 9001 and LPCB approved, the certification insurers look for
- BS 9251 · BS EN 12845
- Free survey, fixed price in writing, no travel charge
What is different about care homes
Care homes are the building type where sprinklers do most of their work, because the fire strategy cannot lean on everybody leaving quickly. That makes the system less optional in practice than the regulations alone suggest, and it makes the maintenance record something you are asked for rather than something you file.
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Evacuation strategy is the reason
Progressive horizontal evacuation depends on the compartment holding long enough to move people sideways rather than out. Suppression is what buys that time, which is why a fire risk assessment for a care home reaches a different conclusion than the same assessment on an office of the same size.
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Residential standard, commercial rigour
Most care home systems are designed to BS 9251. The regime still has to be documented to the standard a commercial inspector expects, and the two are easy to confuse: residential design does not mean informal maintenance.
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Working around residents
Testing makes noise, and isolation changes what the building is operating under. Both are manageable and neither is something to discover on the day. We agree the alarm handling and the isolation window with the home before the visit.
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The record is asked for, not filed
Care homes get inspected by more bodies than most buildings, and the sprinkler record is one of the documents that comes out. A complete log with no gaps is worth more at that moment than any amount of recent work.
What we do for these buildings
- BS EN 12845 Sprinkler servicing The full BS EN 12845 routine, from the weekly gauge and alarm check to the annual service. Fire sprinkler servicing and maintenance
- BS EN 12845 and BS 9251 Design and installation New systems, extensions and upgrades, designed, installed and commissioned. Fire sprinkler system design and installation
- Any hour 24/7 emergency A leak, a failed pump or a discharged head, answered out of hours. Emergency sprinkler and riser repair
- BS EN 12845 Fire pumps Electric and diesel sets proved under flow, not just started and signed off. Fire pump servicing, testing and maintenance
Care homes: questions
Are sprinklers a legal requirement in care homes?
It depends on when the building was built and where it is. New care homes in England have expectations under Approved Document B, Scotland has required them in new care homes for far longer, and Wales requires them in almost all new residential buildings. For an existing home there is no blanket retrofit duty in England, but a fire risk assessment can conclude that the building needs them, and for a care home that conclusion is reached more often than for most building types.
How do you test without alarming residents?
By agreeing it first. The alarm handling, who needs telling, which parts make noise and when the quiet periods are all get settled before the visit rather than on the day. Most of the routine is non-intrusive; the parts that are not can usually be scheduled around the home rather than the other way round.
Can the system be worked on while the home is occupied?
Yes, and it almost always has to be. What matters is that the isolation is planned, kept as short as the work genuinely takes, and that the home knows what its fire strategy is operating on while it is down. Where the system has zone valves, one wing can be isolated while the rest stays in service.
We are a small home. Is this proportionate?
The regime scales with the system, not with the number of beds. A small home with one valve set and a modest head count is a short visit and a simple record. What does not scale down is the documentation: a small home gets asked for the same log as a large one.
Worth reading first
- Compliance When does a UK building legally need sprinklers? In England, new blocks of flats over 11 metres must have sprinklers, and Wales requires them in almost all new homes. Beyond those thresholds, sprinklers are required by building control, by the fire strategy, or by an insurer rather than by a single national rule.
- Sprinklers Sprinkler servicing intervals under BS EN 12845 BS EN 12845 sets a weekly check the site can do itself, a quarterly flow switch and alarm test, and an annual service that includes the pump run under flow.
- Compliance What your insurer actually wants from a sprinkler system Insurers price a sprinkler system as risk mitigation only if they can trust it. LPCB approval of the contractor and an unbroken maintenance record are the two things that make it count.
The published documents behind this page
Every interval and threshold on this page comes from one of these. Links go to the publisher, not to a copy of the document.
- BS 9251Fire sprinkler systems for domestic and residential occupancies. Code of practice
The residential equivalent: blocks of flats, care homes, student accommodation and houses.
BSI
- BS EN 12845Fixed firefighting systems. Automatic sprinkler systems. Design, installation and maintenance
The standard commercial and industrial sprinkler systems are designed, installed and maintained to. It sets the weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual routines.
BSI
British Standards are copyright documents and most are bought rather than read free. We hold the ones we work to. If you need to know what one of them says about your building, ask us rather than buying it.
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.