Fire Risk Assessment Awareness Guide 2022
Within this Fire Risk Assessment Awareness Guide we will cover everything you need to know about Fire Safety within your building and how best to keep you and your employees safe and fire safety compliant.
What is a Fire Risk Assessment?
The main premise of a risk assessment is for an assessor to come and look around your business they will identify any potential fire risks around the building and then will guide you as to where things need improving if required. By law, all businesses require a Fire Risk Assessment periodically, appropriate to the risk or whenever there is a significant change in use, structure or staffing at the premises.
Once your assessment is complete and is satisfactory under Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, you will receive a safety certificate proving your building is compliant within the correct and current legislations.
What gets checked and why?
When an assessor arrives at your building, he will be looking for any potential fire hazards, such as the room set up to make sure the exit door is easily accessible and nothing is blocking its way. Or if the access has any obstacles that are difficult to move.
They will also be looking at where things are located in the building, such as fire extinguishers, fire alarms, emergency lighting and exits, as well as anything else associated with fire safety concerned, this is to make sure it is all in the correct place in case of the event of a fire in the building.
It’s very important for the location of everything to be checked as if something isn’t in the right place and in the unlikely event of a fire, someone can’t find the exit or an extinguisher then it could cause catastrophic harm to an employee, as well as the building.
Once everything has been looked over and checked by the assessor if he is happy with what he has found and there is nothing major to point out. Then you will be given a report that is given a satisfactory status. It is very important that you have this at a satisfactory state as if there is a fire that breaks out in the building and you do not have one that is up to code then you could receive monetary fines, maybe even jail time depending on how serious the offense is.
What could happen if you don’t keep your Risk Assessment up-to-date?
It is a legal requirement to keep your Fire Risk Assessment up to date Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. You must have one every six months to make sure your building is up to code, as well as safe for your employees in case of an emergency within the building
Not keeping your risk assessment up to date can lead to a lot of potentially dangerous and life-threatening situations within your building, as well as putting you and/or your employees in danger. It could lead to a fire within the building, as well as the possibility of not being able to control and extinguish the flames. This could be due to the wrong placement of fire extinguishers/sprinklers or there being an absence of both in the building.
There could also be legal and insurance issues if not kept up to date, as your insurance provider could require you to have proof of the risk assessment for it to still be valid in case of a fire/emergency. This could also cause legal implications to you in case of such an emergency if an employee or customer is injured in an incident that would have otherwise been avoided if a risk assessment was carried out.
How can we help you?
The Elec Group is a leading supplier of electrical testing and compliance services. We’ve got an army of technicians with high experience and the best qualifications on hand. In addition, our engineers are specialists within their fields having over 17 years of industry experience. The Elec Group always aims to provide an adequate service on the specific needs of each individual customer regardless of size.
We will work with you to identify your needs and provide appropriate quotes. The Operations Team will contact the customer to agree dates and deal with logistical arrangements. The Elec Group aims to carry out testing with minimum disruption to your business. Wherever practical work is, we carry it out during normal work hours.
If this is not possible, we can arrange the work out of hours, evenings, nights or weekends. Comprehensive reports will be provided once testing has been completed. Account Managers and our Technical Experts are available to discuss reports and future programs of work. After testing, The Elec Group provides quotes for remedial work to ensure your buildings can be safe and compliant
