The maintenance of fire protection systems and control of lead-acid batteries are crucial phases for the existence of the system. Those stages are often mistakenly put into the background compared to design and installation of the same. In particular, the control of lead-acid batteries is critical.
Many times we confuse the extraordinary maintenance, linked to the restoration of system functionality, with ordinary maintenance. The maintenance management of a fire protection system, in fact, include monitoring performance, continuous tracking and diagnosys. These activities prevent damages or malfunctions and therefore minimize the extraordinary maintenance activities.
Despite what you might think, the maintenance and control of the fire protection system is an essential step of the process, aimed to reduce fire risk level, to increase human life safety and to preserve the property.
What about the UNI 11224
The UNI 11224 regulates the proper design of fire-fighting systems verification and maintenance. This legislation describes “the procedures for the initial control, surveillance and periodic inspection, maintenance and revision of automatic fixed systems of detection, manual alarm and fire alarm.” The purpose of maintenance is therefore checking the functionality of the installations for the conservation in time of performance. This regulation refers both to new systems and those already existing. The UNI 11224 does not refers to the effectiveness of firefighting equipment, which is the task of the UNI 9795.
As required by UNI 11224, the first check on the fire alarm system must be done at the time of delivery or while taking charge of a maintenance system. At least once every six months it should be provided for a regular control, according to the maintenance schedule from the system manager. Instead, we need to do the general inspection of the system at least once every 10 years, according to the recommendations of the current legislation and the technological equipment that are used. As mentioned earlier, ordinary and extraordinary maintenance instead should be carried out periodically, based on the amount of repairs to be made.
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Lead-acid batteries control in fire systems
The control of lead acid batteries (VRLA) is part of a fire fighting system maintenance. During regular periodic checks, it is good to check the status of the batteries and their age.
The BIGBAT lead-acid batteries, for example, provide long lasting performance and have a 18-month warranty from production date. Like all lead-acid batteries for fire systems, even BIGBAT batteries are routinely under verifcation. Each BIGBAT battery has a reference code by which it is possible to determine the date of production, which allows to control the age of the same at any time.
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ELAN is daily close to the customer to perform the checks and to ensure any the quality of lead-acid batteries that are installed in a fire fighting system.
It is good to put the maintenance of fire protection systems among their priorities. Consequently, periodic monitoring of lead-acid batteries must be made in the manner listed above. ELAN is at customer disposal to help in prevention and maintenance.