Cinema and theatre sprinkler systems
A new build or refurbishment, a change of operator, an insurer question, or a fire risk assessment on a building with a stage.
- ISO 9001 and LPCB approved, the certification insurers look for
- BS EN 12845
- Free survey, fixed price in writing, no travel charge
What is different about cinemas and theatres
This is the classification people get wrong most often. Annex A of BS EN 12845 lists cinemas and theatres under Ordinary Hazard Group 4, the top of the ordinary range, alongside concert halls and exhibition halls. A room full of seated people, acoustic treatment, drapes and a projection room is not the low risk it looks like, and a system designed as though it were is under-designed from the day it was commissioned.
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OH4 sets the density and the water behind it
The hazard group decides how much water per square metre the system must deliver and for how long, and OH4 asks for considerably more than the OH1 an office gets. That flows straight back to the pipe sizes, the pump duty and the stored volume. It is the reason a cinema cannot be priced or designed from floor area alone.
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A stage is its own set of rules
BS EN 12845 deals with theatres separately. Where there is a safety curtain between stage and auditorium, the curtain gets a line of drenchers on a quick opening valve, fed upstream of any control valve set. The stage itself gets a water spray installation with automatic and manual activation, or sprinklers where the stage is no more than 12 metres high. A multiplex without a stage skips this; a receiving house does not.
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Back of house is where the fire load actually is
The standard requires workshops, dressing rooms, scenery, storerooms and the spaces below the stage to be sprinklered. That is the scenery dock, the wardrobe and the understage, which between them hold more combustible material than the auditorium ever does. It is also the part most likely to have been reorganised since the system was designed.
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You cannot take it down on a Friday night
A venue with a full house has nowhere to put anybody, so isolation planning is the job rather than an afterthought. The standard is explicit: one zone at a time, down for the minimum the work needs, and the shutdown of a life safety installation avoided wherever possible. Dark days and mornings exist for this, and they get booked months ahead.
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 Fire pumps Electric and diesel sets proved under flow, not just started and signed off. Fire pump servicing, testing and maintenance
- BS EN 12845 Sprinkler tanks The water supply behind the system, inspected, cleaned and replaced when it is past it. Sprinkler tank service, maintenance and replacement
- Any hour 24/7 emergency A leak, a failed pump or a discharged head, answered out of hours. Emergency sprinkler and riser repair
Cinemas and theatres: questions
Is a cinema really a higher hazard than a hospital?
Under Annex A of BS EN 12845, yes. Hospitals sit at Ordinary Hazard Group 1 and cinemas and theatres at Group 4. It reads oddly until you look at what is in the room: dense seating with foam and fabric, acoustic treatment on every surface, drapes, and in a theatre a scenery dock behind it all. The classification is about how fast a fire develops and how much water it takes to hold it, not about how the room feels.
We are a multiplex with no stage. Does the theatre guidance apply?
The stage specific requirements do not, because there is no stage, no safety curtain and no understage. The Ordinary Hazard Group 4 classification still does, and so does everything that follows from it on density, water supply and pump duty. The parts of the building that most resemble a theatre, the stores and the plant, are still where the fire load concentrates.
Our scenery dock has been reorganised. Does that matter?
It can matter a great deal. The standard requires those spaces to be sprinklered, and the design assumed a certain amount of material in a certain arrangement. Racking that went up, stock that changed or a new mezzanine can all leave heads covering the wrong volume. It is a survey question rather than a paperwork one, and it is worth asking before an insurer does.
When can the work actually be done?
Around the programme, and planned well ahead. Weekly and monthly checks fit into a normal morning. The annual needs isolation, which means a dark day or a closed screen, one zone at a time. We agree the isolation window, who needs telling and what the building is operating on while it is down, before the visit rather than on the day.
Worth reading first
- Compliance BS EN 12845, in plain English BS EN 12845 is the European standard for the design, installation and maintenance of fixed fire sprinkler systems in commercial and industrial buildings. It is the document that sets the weekly, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly and annual routines a UK sprinkler system has to be kept to.
- 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.
- Sprinklers How a fire sprinkler system actually works Each sprinkler head is held shut by a heat-sensitive glass bulb or fusible link, so only the heads directly over a fire open. The resulting flow drops the pressure in the pipework, which starts the pump and operates the alarm.
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 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.