Shopping centre sprinkler systems
A unit changing hands, a fit-out, a mall refurbishment, or a managing agent asking who is responsible for what.
- ISO 9001 and LPCB approved, the certification insurers look for
- BS EN 12845 · BS 9990
- Free survey, fixed price in writing, no travel charge
What is different about shopping centres
Annex A of BS EN 12845 lists shopping centres at Ordinary Hazard Group 3, alongside department stores, which is two steps above an office and reflects what is actually in the building: dense retail stock, packaging, and stockrooms behind every shop front. The engineering is well understood. What makes a centre difficult is that it is really thirty buildings under one roof, each one altered by a different tenant on a different timetable.
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Every fit-out is a change to the design
A new tenant puts in a ceiling, a mezzanine, a stockroom and a rack layout, and each of those decides where water lands and how much is needed. The centre-wide design was drawn once. It is then amended, unofficially, every time a unit changes hands, which is why the drawings in the management suite and the building above them drift apart.
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The stockroom is the fire, not the shop floor
Display areas are sparse and well managed. Behind them sit stacked cardboard, packaging and palletised stock, often higher than the design assumed and often stacked into the clearance below the heads. Stock in the clearance zone stops the spray pattern developing, and it is the commonest and cheapest defect to put right in a retail building.
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Mall and unit are different responsibilities
The landlord holds the mall, the plant and the water supply. The tenant holds what is inside the unit, including whatever their fit-out did above the ceiling. As in an office block, the gap between the two is where an interval goes unbooked, except here it happens thirty times over and a single tenant's lapse sits inside the landlord's building.
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Risers, plant and trading hours
A centre of any height also owes dry or wet risers under BS 9990 on their own interval, usually held separately. And none of it can be isolated at half past two on a Saturday, so the annual lives at night or before opening, one zone at a time, booked well 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 9990 Dry risers Six-monthly inspection and the annual pressure test, with the certificate your fire risk assessment asks for. Dry riser testing and servicing
- Any hour 24/7 emergency A leak, a failed pump or a discharged head, answered out of hours. Emergency sprinkler and riser repair
Shopping centres: questions
A unit has been re-let and fitted out. What should we check?
Whether the head layout still matches what is under it. A fit-out typically brings a new ceiling, sometimes a mezzanine, and always a different stockroom arrangement, and all three change where water needs to land. It is a short survey of that unit rather than a re-examination of the centre, and it is far cheaper than finding the mismatch at the next annual or at a claim.
Who is responsible, us or the tenant?
The lease decides, and the usual split is that the landlord maintains the installation across the centre and recovers it through the service charge, while alterations inside a demise are the tenant's. The practical point is that one complete record has to exist for the whole building. A fire risk assessor asking about suppression will not accept thirty partial answers.
Our tenants stack stock right up to the ceiling. Does it matter?
Yes, and it is the single most common defect we find in retail. BS EN 12845 requires clear space below the heads so the spray pattern can develop. Stock stacked into that zone stops water reaching the floor, which means the system cannot do what it was designed to do whatever the certificate says. It costs nothing to fix and it is worth writing into the tenant handbook.
When can the work be done in a trading centre?
Overnight or before opening, and booked a long way ahead. The weekly and monthly checks are non-intrusive. The annual needs isolation, and the standard asks for one zone at a time, down for the shortest time the work needs. On a centre that means a planned sequence across several visits rather than one long shutdown, with the management suite knowing at every point what is live and what is not.
Worth reading first
- Sprinklers Sprinklers in warehouses: why racking changes everything A warehouse sprinkler system is designed against a specific storage height, storage arrangement and commodity class. Raising the racking, changing what is stored or adding racking under a roof-only design can leave the system unable to control a fire it was never designed for.
- 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 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
- BS 9990Non-automatic fire-fighting systems in buildings. Code of practice
Dry and wet risers, and private fire mains. The source of the six-monthly inspection and the annual pressure test.
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.