Fire sprinkler systems in Birmingham

Fire sprinkler systems in Birmingham, installed, serviced and tested by Sentry Sprinkler Protection, with a free survey and a fixed price in writing. No survey fee, no travel charge, and an emergency line that answers outside working hours.

  • 49 miles from our yard in Kettering
  • ISO 9001 certified
  • Covering B1 to B9

Birmingham: photograph by Stephen JG, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

Fire protection in Birmingham

Sentry Sprinkler Protection provides dry riser testing in Birmingham and across the West Midlands, from its base in Kettering. The second city, and the biggest market on our regular runs. Birmingham has had a sustained high-rise residential boom alongside a deep manufacturing and industrial base and a large city centre commercial core. Tall buildings mean risers, and risers mean a testing regime with a hard interval.

Where we tend to end up: the high-rise residential going up across the city centre, the Jewellery Quarter and Digbeth, and the manufacturing and distribution estates around Aston and the Business Park.

A dry riser above 18 metres is not optional and neither is its test: six-monthly visual, annual pressure test at 12 bar held for 15 minutes under BS 9990. It is the single most commonly missed interval we see.

Buildings this applies to

  • High-rise residential and build-to-rent
  • City centre offices and commercial
  • Manufacturing and industrial premises
  • Student accommodation and hotels

What is actually built in Birmingham

Birmingham is the second city and the biggest market we work in. It is also, measurably, where most of our search demand comes from: the city and the West Midlands around it draw many times the interest that Kettering does. So this is not a page written to fill a map. It is written because this is where the work is.

What Birmingham has that almost nowhere else does at this scale is a sustained high-rise residential and build-to-rent boom sitting directly on top of a deep manufacturing and industrial base. Tall buildings mean risers, and risers mean a testing regime with a hard interval and no discretion in it. The manufacturing estates around Aston mean process risk and continuous operation at the same time.

Add the city centre commercial core, the Jewellery Quarter and Digbeth, and a large stock of student accommodation and hotels, and a single Birmingham portfolio can span four different standards on four different intervals.

Why this matters in Birmingham

  • Above 18 metres the riser is not optional and neither is its test

    BS 9990 sets a six-monthly visual inspection and an annual pressure test at 12 bar held for 15 minutes. It is the single most commonly missed interval we see anywhere, and in Birmingham the usual cause is a change of managing agent where the schedule did not follow the contract.

  • Build-to-rent towers carry risers and sprinklers together

    A modern residential tower commonly has a wet or dry riser and a BS 9251 sprinkler system, which are two regimes with two intervals and two sets of records. Servicing the building to one schedule leaves one of them unproved.

  • Manufacturing plant cannot simply stop

    The industrial estates carry process risk and continuous production. The annual becomes a planning exercise: zone by zone, around shift patterns, with the isolation agreed in writing before an engineer arrives.

  • Student accommodation and hotels run on their own calendars

    Student blocks empty on an academic cycle, which is the obvious isolation window. Hotels never empty, so the work goes overnight. Same standard, completely different diaries.

The systems Birmingham actually has

Riser testing first, dry and wet, then sprinkler servicing. Installation happens here but the defining work is proving the testing regime on tall buildings that have often been through more than one managing agent.

Getting there: Forty-nine miles, on the M6 and A45, so a Birmingham visit is planned rather than spontaneous. Scheduled testing and installation are straightforward and we are in the city regularly. If what you need is an engineer within the hour, a Birmingham-based contractor will beat us, and we would rather say so than take the contract.

Not sure which standard your Birmingham 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.

A packaged fire pump house with the door open, showing a red Clarke diesel pump set and its exhaust stack
A red Clarke diesel fire pump set with its control panel and galvanised pipework in a pump room
A large bolted sectional galvanised sprinkler tank with its overflow pipe and riser

The work, not the town

These are our own jobs rather than stock photographs. We have not claimed any of them were taken in Birmingham, because that is not something we would be able to show you.

All 62 photographs

From first call to certificate

Four steps, the same on every job.

  1. A sprinkler layout drawing marked up on site during a survey
    01

    Free survey

    We look at the building and its records, and tell you what it is due.

  2. A sprinkler installation drawing open on a laptop on site
    02

    Fixed price in writing

    Every item priced line by line. No survey fee, nothing added afterwards.

  3. An engineer installing sprinkler pipework from a scissor lift
    03

    The work, on your dates

    Isolation agreed before anyone arrives, kept as short as the job takes.

  4. A bank of sprinkler alarm valve sets with gauges in a plant room
    04

    Certificate and record

    A certificate and a photographed defect list, ready for your insurer.

  5. Start

    Book the free survey

    Tell us the building. We will tell you what it is due.

    Book a free survey

Free survey · fixed price in writing

Tell us what you need. We will tell you what it takes.

Four quick taps and your details. A free survey and a fixed price in writing, with no survey fee and no obligation.

Call 07927 555475

Mon to Fri, 7am to 5pm. Emergencies any hour.

What do you need?

Pick one. The next questions follow from it.

What kind of building is it?
How tall is the building?
What is happening?
Which part needs looking at?
Where is the project?
When is it due?
How soon do you need us?
Who do we ring back?

Usually the same working day. We never share your details.

No survey fee, no obligation. ISO 9001:2015 certified.

Birmingham questions, answered

Our Birmingham block is over 18 metres. What is compulsory?

A dry riser, and its testing regime: a six-monthly visual inspection and an annual pressure test at 12 bar held for 15 minutes, under BS 9990. It is the single most commonly missed interval we see, usually because the building changed managing agent and the schedule did not follow.

Which building risers do you look after in Birmingham?

Dry risers, wet risers and the sprinkler risers that feed BS 9251 and BS EN 12845 systems. In a modern Birmingham tower they often sit side by side, with separate regimes and separate records, and we keep them on one schedule.

Do you service dry risers across the West Midlands, not just Birmingham?

Yes. Birmingham is the centre of it, and the same planned runs cover Coventry and the rest of the West Midlands. Dry riser servicing is the BS 9990 regime: a six-monthly visual inspection and an annual pressure test at 12 bar held for 15 minutes, with the inlet, landing valves and cabinets checked each time.

Our dry riser inlet is damaged. Can you replace it?

Yes. A damaged inlet box, a missing cap or a breeching that will not seal is one of the commonest failures at ground level, and a fire crew cannot use a riser it cannot connect to. We replace the inlet or the failed parts and retest the riser afterwards.

Do you install new dry risers in Birmingham buildings?

Yes. New dry risers are designed and installed to BS 9990, usually alongside the main contractor on a new tower or a conversion, and tested at handover before the regime starts.

You are based in Kettering. Does the distance affect the service?

It is 49 miles, so a Birmingham visit is planned rather than spontaneous. Scheduled testing and installation are straightforward and we are in the city regularly. If what you need is an engineer within the hour, a Birmingham contractor will beat us and we will tell you that rather than take the contract.

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.

Book a free survey

See the coverage map and every town we work in

Where Birmingham is on our patch

49 miles from our yard in Kettering, inside the ring we are in most weeks.

Towns near Birmingham

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 Birmingham.

See the full coverage map

Certified, and audited on a schedule.

ISO 9001, certified by BRE Global and accredited by UKAS. Somebody independent audits how every job is planned, recorded and signed off, on a schedule.

BRE Global Certification and UKAS Management Systems 0007

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.

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.

Based
37 Dickens Drive, Kettering, NN16 9EG
Covering
Kettering · Corby · Wellingborough · Northampton · Rushden · Daventry · Market Harborough · Bedford and England, from our base in Kettering
Office hours
Monday to Friday, 7am to 5pm. Emergency line any hour.

What do you need?
Type of building optional
Who do we come back to?

    If it is urgent, ring rather than write. We are on the phone Monday to Friday, 7am to 5pm, and outside those hours the same number reaches the emergency line.

    Or send it straight to us

    Or just ring 07927 555475 and talk it through. Mon to Fri, 7am to 5pm. Emergencies any hour.