Fire Alarm System Maintenance in Bangladesh

What does NFPA 72 ask for?

NFPA 72 has a chapter on inspection, testing and maintenance, with tables of tasks and their frequencies. Some tasks are visual checks of the panel and devices, some are functional tests that put test smoke or heat into a detector, and some check batteries, power supplies and outputs. Each has its own interval, so a good schedule spreads them across the year.

Smoke detectors also need their sensitivity checked at the intervals the standard sets, because dust and insects push a detector toward false alarms or toward never alarming at all. Addressable panels often report each detector's contamination level, which makes it easier to clean or replace the right heads before they cause trouble.

Why do false alarms keep happening?

Repeated false alarms usually trace to a handful of causes: dirty detectors, the wrong detector type in a canteen, boiler room or loading bay, damaged cables causing intermittent faults, or call points knocked by trolleys. In garment factories, lint and cotton dust are frequent culprits. Every false alarm should be logged against the device that triggered it.

We read the panel's event log to find the devices that alarm repeatedly, then fix the cause: a heat detector instead of smoke near a canteen stove, a protective cover over an exposed call point, or a cable repair. Cutting false alarms is a safety issue, because workers who hear the alarm every week stop evacuating when it sounds.