Office sprinkler systems in Kettering
Office sprinkler systems serviced and installed to BS EN 12845, with the building's dry and wet risers tested under BS 9990.
- ISO 9001, the certification insurers look for
- BS EN 12845 · BS 9990
- Free survey, fixed price in writing, no travel charge
What is different about offices
Office sprinkler systems usually need attention at a fit-out, a new lease, a managing agent taking the building on, or a fire risk assessment that asked who maintains what. Sentry Sprinkler Protection installs and services sprinkler systems for offices, to BS EN 12845 and BS 9990. An office is one of the gentler things a sprinkler system can be asked to protect. Annex A of BS EN 12845 puts offices at Light Hazard in certain areas and Ordinary Hazard Group 1 otherwise, which is the bottom of the range. The difficulty in an office block is almost never the fire engineering. It is that the building is let in pieces, and a system that runs through all of them has to be maintained by somebody.
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The demise line is the whole problem
The landlord holds the common parts, the riser and usually the plant. The tenant holds what is inside their demise, including whatever the last fit-out did to the head layout above their ceiling. Neither half works on its own, and the gap between them is where an annual goes unbooked for three years. Get the boundary written down before you need it, not during a claim.
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Fit-outs move heads, and nobody tells the system
A new ceiling grid, a partition through an open floor, a server room carved out of a corner. Each of those changes where water lands, and each is done by a fit-out contractor to a drawing that does not include the sprinkler design. The commonest defect we find in offices is a head sitting the wrong side of a partition that went up two tenants ago.
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Water and server rooms
Annex A lists a computer room as Ordinary Hazard Group 1 but excludes tape storage, and in practice comms rooms are where people most want protection and least want water. That is a design conversation about what protects the room and what protects the floor around it, and it is worth having before the fit-out rather than after.
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Tall offices owe a riser as well
Above the height thresholds in Approved Document B the building owes a dry or wet riser under BS 9990, on its own testing interval, usually held by a different contractor. Sprinklers and risers falling out of step is the single most common finding on a multi-let office, because each supplier assumes the other has it.
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
- BS 9990 Dry risers Six-monthly inspection and the annual pressure test, with the certificate your fire risk assessment asks for. Dry riser testing
- BS 9990 Wet risers Charged risers, their pumps and their tanks, tested together because they only work together. Wet riser servicing
- BS EN 12845 and BS 9251 Design and installation New systems, extensions and upgrades, designed, installed and commissioned. Fire sprinkler installation
From first call to certificate
Four steps, the same on every job.
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01Free survey
We look at the building and its records, and tell you what it is due.
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02Fixed price in writing
Every item priced line by line. No survey fee, nothing added afterwards.
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03The work, on your dates
Isolation agreed before anyone arrives, kept as short as the job takes.
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04Certificate and record
A certificate and a photographed defect list, ready for your insurer.
- 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.
Mon to Fri, 7am to 5pm. Emergencies any hour.
Request received
We’ve got it from here.
Step 1 of 5 is done. Here is how the rest goes.
- Request sent Done
- 2 We call you Next
- 3 Free survey
- 4 Fixed price
- 5 Work done
Offices: questions
We are the tenant. Is the sprinkler system our responsibility?
It depends entirely on the lease, and the honest answer is that most leases are vaguer about it than either side assumes. The usual split is that the landlord maintains the installation and recovers it through the service charge, while anything the tenant altered inside their demise is the tenant's. What matters more than the split is that somebody holds a complete record for the whole system, because a fire risk assessor will ask for one document, not two halves.
Our floor has just been fitted out. Does the system need looking at?
Yes, and it is much cheaper to look now than at the next annual. A fit-out changes ceilings, partitions and sometimes the use of a space, and all three affect whether heads still cover what they were designed to cover. It is a short survey: what is installed, what moved, and whether the layout still matches the design. Anything found gets priced separately from the servicing.
Can the annual be done without emptying the building?
Normally yes. The weekly and monthly checks are non-intrusive and can happen in working hours. The work that needs the system isolated is the annual, and on a building with zone valves that can be taken a floor or a section at a time, out of hours, so the offices keep trading. BS EN 12845 is explicit that only one zone should be down at a time and for the shortest time the work genuinely takes.
We are taking the building over as managing agent. Where do we start?
With the file, not the system. Ask the outgoing agent for the commissioning documentation, the as-fitted drawings, the last annual certificate and the defect list. Then a survey to check the building against the paperwork, because on a multi-let office those two have usually drifted apart. What you want at the end is one record for the whole installation with your name on it.
Worth reading first
- Sprinklers How often should sprinklers be serviced? Under BS EN 12845, sprinklers are checked weekly by the site, checked monthly for water and fuel, tested quarterly, given an interim contractor service every six months and a full service once a year, with the pump proved 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. Who installed it, what it was designed to and an unbroken maintenance record are what make it count.
- Risers Wet riser or dry riser: which one is in your building? A dry riser is an empty pipe charged by the fire brigade on arrival. A wet riser is permanently full of water, kept at pressure by its own pump set, and is used in taller buildings where the brigade cannot pump high enough from the ground.
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.
An office sprinkler system, in 3D
Pick the parts, start a fire and watch what each one does.
Illustration only. Not a design.
- The bulb over the fire bursts at 68°C. Only that head opens.
- Water moves through the valve set: the gong rings and the flow switch raises the alarm.
- The pressure drops and the fire pump starts.
- Water reaches the open head and the spray holds the fire back.
- The fire is held in check until the brigade arrives.
- The brigade connects to the riser and takes water to the fire floor.
- With no sprinklers, nothing acts on the fire until the brigade arrives.
Drag to turn it. Ctrl + scroll to zoom. Click any part to see what it is.
Your system
What it needs
- Weekly tank level check, pump start test, alarm motor test, system checks
- Quarterly flow switch and alarm test
- Annual tank inspection and clean, pump performance test under flow, valve set strip, clean and rebuild, full service
Illustration only. This model shows how a fire sprinkler system works. It is not a design for any real building, and the layout, pipe sizes, head spacing, water supply and riser positions in it are not the ones your building would need. Every real system is designed for its building after a survey, to BS EN 12845, BS 9251 or BS 9990.
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.
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.
5.0 on Google
3 reviews, and every one of them five stars.
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Lewis W. Sprinkler installation, warehouse Had them install a full sprinkler system across one of our warehouses, and couldn't be happier. They were professional from start to finish and the on-site team were genuinely friendly to work with. […] Highly recommend if you would need your building or warehouse properly fire-protected.
5 stars on Google
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Mike C. Weekly maintenance, testing and repair Sentry Sprinkler Protection have recently taken over the weekly maintenance, testing and repair of the […] sprinkler equipment. They are providing a excellent service, good value and they are also very helpful when on site.
5 stars on Google
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Sam E. Sprinkler pipework installation Couldn't recommend [Sentry] enough. Their work ethic, consistent efficient install of the pipework and overall approach to a project should be something every sub-contractor strives to mirror. Marius is incredibly approachable and methodical in his work with laydown areas kept very neat and tidy and all work carried out in a safe manner.
5 stars on Google
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.
Request received
We’ve got it from here.
Step 1 of 5 is done. Here is how the rest goes.
- Request sent Done
- 2 We call you Next
- 3 Free survey
- 4 Fixed price
- 5 Work done