After more than two years' work, the revision to BS 5306-3 on the commissioning and maintenance of portable fire extinguishers is published. Keith Goodwin highlights some of the main changes.

The standard covers the servicing of portable extinguishers

This brief article is intended to provide a short guide to highlight the principal changes introduced by this 2009 version of
BS 5306-3, and the expected impact of these changes on the portable fire extinguishing servicing market.

Throughout the drafting within a task group of the BSI committee, the intention was to try and simplify the existing standard and ensure that the new standard reflected current practices. The work was not without its share of controversy but in the end we have a standard that is current and should help the industry better service the needs of its customers.

So having said that, what are the changes brought in by the 2009 version? Well firstly to give better guidance on what the standard actually covers the title has been changed to: Code of practice for the commissioning and maintenance of portable fire extinguishers. The old title referred to ‘inspection' but it was recognised that inspection is part of commissioning and maintenance, so the title now reflects what actually happens.

Also it was recognised that extinguishers now come from a wide range of new sources, in addition to the traditional supply route of the fire extinguisher manufacturers and suppliers. The Internet now plays an increasing role in the sale of portable fire extinguishers. I won't go into discussions on the rights and wrongs of this and neither does BS 5306. The Fire Safety Order places an onus on the responsible person to ensure that fire protection equipment installed is fit for purpose and maintained (more about this later) – this is from day one. Also, suppression systems and fire alarm systems are commissioned to ensure that what is installed meets the original design and actually works when required. Portable fire extinguishers should not be any different and most fire companies installing portables have been doing this for a number of years now. The standard reflects this and sets out the steps to be taken when installing a new extinguisher. This should give the customer more assurance that what is installed will do what it is supposed to, when it is needed.

What the standard says, in short, is this step should be carried out by a competent person and immediately prior to placing the extinguisher in its designated place. The committee recognised that under the Fire Safety Order the responsible person (previously referred to as the user) has far more wide-ranging responsibilities. The standard provides additional guidance for the responsible person: this now includes a check for missing parts, a requirement that results are recorded, and, if they have any doubts, the responsible person is guided to consult a competent person. Furthermore, again to ensure compliance with the Fire Safety Order, the responsible person is required to advise the competent person of changes likely to affect extinguisher cover.

Having identified some of the most notable changes, we'll now go through the standard as a reader would, from front to back, highlighting the most significant changes. With the addition of the new commissioning step, there are now five service stages instead of four, starting with ‘commissioning' moving through ‘basic' and ‘extended' to ‘overhaul' and ‘recharge'. Basic service intervals now have a tolerance of 12 months plus or minus a month – this allows for the fact it's never possible to always attend on the same day every year. It also avoids the embarrassing comment "well you came on the 12th last year so you're late."

At the basic service there is now a requirement to carry out a weight check on all extinguishers – there is no longer exclusion for cartridge operated extinguishers.

There has been quite a bit of change to extended services which again, now have a tolerance on the intervals. For water, water based and powder the extended service should be carried out five years from date of commissioning or six years from date of manufacture, whichever is sooner. For primary sealed powder extinguishers it's ten years from date of commissioning or 11 years from date of manufacture, whichever is sooner.

Plastics headcaps
Those who have been in the business for a while are well aware of concerns about ageing and wear to plastics head caps. The standard has attempted to address these concerns in the following ways. Firstly there is now a new definition of a plastics head cap, which is: "component manufactured from plastics designed to retain working pressure upon actuation of an extinguisher. Note: This includes plastics headcaps retained by a metal collar, but excludes metal headcaps which have a plastics shroud where the plastics component does not retain working pressure."

At extended service, as a safety precaution, the standard states that you should replace plastics head caps at the end of the service before re-assembly of the extinguisher. As a further safety step, it also states that if you have any concerns about the head, for example it's been painted or there are obvious signs of UV degradation, then you replace the head cap before you carry out the test discharge.

There is now quite a bit of guidance on labelling and marking and what you should do if you are unsure about labels or markings on the extinguisher. In a competitive market everyone wishes to put their mark in the best view to the customer: BS 5306-3 makes it very clear, however, that distributor and service provider labels should not obscure any marking required by EN 3. Let's face it, this marking is important – it tells you what you need to know about the extinguisher so why would you cover it up! The standard also requires the maintenance label (this was called the maintenance record in the 2000 version) to have the full postal address of the service provider and a statement that the extinguisher has been serviced to BS 5306-3. This latter bit allows responsible persons to show they are complying with their legal responsibilities.

Report
The maintenance report should include information on providing permanent replacements for extinguishers that have been condemned, not maintained or are missing. In addition, it should give guidance if the coverage in a building needs to be improved; the service technician is seen as the best person to advise the client about these issues.

Information on the certificate of inspection that was previously covered in the BAFE schemes has been added. This includes:
•  Name, postal address and telephone number
•  Date of inspection
•  ID of technician
•  List of all extinguishers serviced and those non-conforming
•  Signature of the responsible person (Note, not technician)
•  Statement that the service is to BS 5306-3

There has nearly always been confusion about CE marking and what you should do if you don't see the mark. The standard has addressed this and gives clear guidance that if the extinguisher was manufactured post-2002 and it has no CE mark, then you condemn it. If asked, the reason is it does not comply with UK law. It should be noted that this does not apply to refurbished extinguishers.

The new standard acknowledges that extinguishers made to older standards than EN3 are still in service. These are acceptable as long as they remain serviceable and are marked with a fire rating.

Those which do not have a fire rating should not be included when calculating the coverage recommended in BS 5306-8. This also applies to EN3 extinguishers that are not from UK suppliers and may not bear the easily recognisable BSI Kitemark. The FIA (Fire Industry Association) has drafted additional guidance for service technicians to assist them when they come across an extinguisher with marking they may not recognise. This guidance is freely available and can be downloaded from the FIA website.

Training
What does the revised standard say about training? Again, it has attempted to make clear what the requirements are. Initial training hasn't changed much. The standard notes that the training providers have changed and that there are certificates from other bodies that no longer provide training and these will still be accepted. All the examinations are now set by BAFE.

With regard to refresher training, the new standard now accepts that continual professional development (CPD) should provide sufficient knowledge and experience, and is accepted as an alternative to a refresher training course.

The new standard provides guidance on halon extinguishers – yes they are still out there for some specific critical uses, although these exemptions are under review by the European Commission and a timetable has been proposed for the withdrawal of the exemptions. The standard informs the reader that in order to handle such extinguishers, the service technician must have the qualification stated in the UK Ozone Depleting Substances (Minimum Qualifications) Regulations.

This has been a brief tour of the new standard. However, there is no substitute to reading the new standard itself, and although it is not law, responsible service companies and their technicians should be fully conversant with it, and should be working to its provisions. The committee which drafted the standard took a long time to get to where we are and as they say, time will tell if we got it right. But it's certainly a move forward. 

Keith Goodwin is managing director of Anderstore Ltd and is a member the Fire Industry Association's portable servicing committee, installers and maintainers commercial section, and extinguishing manufacturers technical committee.