Choosing, or switching, a sprinkler maintenance contractor

Sprinkler maintenance is bought infrequently and by people who are rarely sprinkler specialists, which is exactly the situation where a confident quotation beats a competent one. This is what to check, and how to move if you are already with somebody and want to leave.

The four checks that matter

Everything else is detail.

1. Are they approved for the work you are buying? In this trade the meaningful mark is LPCB approval under LPS 1048, and ISO 9001 is a precondition for it at any level. Insurers treat a sprinkler system as genuine risk mitigation where an approved contractor installed it and it is maintained on a documented regime. Ask which they hold, ask for the certificate rather than the logo, and check the scope on it covers what you need.

2. Does the quotation name the standard? BS EN 12845 for commercial sprinklers, BS 9251 for residential, BS 9990 for dry and wet risers. A quotation that names none of them is not a compliance quotation whatever it costs, because there is nothing to measure the work against afterwards.

3. Does it list every interval? Five routines for sprinklers, weekly through annual. Two for risers. One annual visit priced against a standard that requires five is a different product, and a cheaper one for the obvious reason. Who does the weekly checks is a legitimate question with two legitimate answers, and you need to know which one you are buying.

4. Do they do this work themselves? Ask who turns up. Water-based suppression is a trade of its own, and a general fire safety contractor covering eleven disciplines is subcontracting at least ten of them. That is not automatically wrong, and you should know before there is a problem at eleven at night.

The pricing side of the same conversation is in what actually drives the cost and, more broadly, on what a system costs.

Warning signs on a quotation

Ordinary, and worth knowing:

• “Annual service” with nothing itemised. It should say what is stripped, what is tested and what is proved.
• A pump priced without a flow test. Starting a pump proves the controller. Only a flow test against its curve proves the pump can deliver, and the gap between those two prices is most of the difference between two pump quotations.
• No mention of remedial work. Nobody knows what a first service will find. An honest contract prices the service and prices repairs when they are found, rather than burying a contingency inside the figure.
• No exclusions. Making good, access equipment, permits and out-of-hours premiums belong in the quotation, not in the invoice.
• A firm price with no survey. Two buildings that look identical can differ by a factor of three once somebody counts the valve sets. A price given before that is a price that changes.

Switching without a gap in cover

The mechanics, in order.

Read the contract first. Find the renewal date and the notice period before you talk to anybody. Twelve months with one to three months’ notice is common, and some agreements roll over automatically if notice is missed. Moving at the end of a term is far simpler than moving in the middle of one.

Line the new contractor up before you serve notice. The intervals do not pause because you are between suppliers. A gap in the record is the thing an insurer or a fire risk assessor will find, and it is entirely avoidable.

Agree the handover in writing. This is the step that goes wrong. What you need transferred, and what belongs to the building rather than to the contractor:

• The logbook, including the weekly entries
• Service certificates for at least the last three years
• Pump test records with measured flow and pressure figures
• The defect list, open and closed
• Commissioning documentation and the as-fitted drawings
• Any valve status record

Tell your insurer. A short note that you are changing supplier, with the new contractor’s approvals. It costs nothing and it removes the question at renewal.

Have the new contractor survey before the first service. They are inheriting a system they did not commission. A survey turns “we assume it was fine” into a documented starting position, and it protects you as much as them.

The records belong to the building

Worth saying plainly, because it is where switching most often stalls. The commissioning file, the as-fitted drawings and the maintenance record are records of your building. A contractor who will not hand them over is telling you something useful about the relationship you have been in.

If they genuinely no longer have them, that is recoverable: a survey and a set of as-installed drawings can be produced from the system as it stands. It costs something and it is worth doing once, because the next handover after that is straightforward.

What good looks like afterwards

Six months in you should have a weekly log with no gaps, a first service certificate naming the standard, a defect list where things have dates and closures against them, and a named person who answers the phone. What an insurer wants to see out of all that is covered in what your insurer wants.

If you are at the start of that process, the survey is free and it comes with a fixed price in writing: sprinkler servicing and dry riser testing.