Maintenance of Fire Protection Systems & Equipment

The Australian Standard AS1851 is developed and reviewed by a community of experienced industry professionals represented by subject matter experts, industry associations, consumers, government, and other invited parties.

Since the publication of the last edition of the Standard, in 2005, there has been established a committee who have been working to review and overhaul the Standard in line with developments in research, technology and shifting community standards.

The next edition of the Standard is expected to be published in 2012 and has already been subject to extensive community consultation and review.

There have been significant changes to the proposed 2012 edition of the Standard when compared to the 2005 edition including extensive changes to to improve the outcomes of maintenance to satisfy the legislative requirements, that is;

“an item of equipment, measure, system or form of construction shall be periodically inspected, tested, surveyed and maintained (maintenance) in a state fit to fulfill their intended purpose.”

To support this the Standard has been rationalised into 14 discrete sections (down from the 2005 edition of 19 sections) There has also been a great deal of emphasis on the documentation of ‘the approved design’ to provide maintenance contractors a ‘benchmark’ or a ‘required standard or performance’ to which the building was designed and approved for occupation.

From a technical perspective, there has been developments and changes in fire system design that have also required that the Standard bechangedtoensureitsobjectives remain current. Significantly, the principals of the Standard remain the same however the implementation has changed.

In essence, the Standard now sets out a uniform method of periodic inspections (monthly, 6-monthly, yearly, 5-yearly, 10-yearly and 25-yearly). These frequencies establish for each item of equipment a routine set of tasks that when undertaken are intended to provide a maintenance person a “pass or fail” response.

In this situation, where a ‘fail’ is identified, a closed-loop process of prioritisation, notification and maintenance is undertaken to minimise any adverse impact of the failure.

The following table is an example of the frequency at which each fire safetysystemoritemofequipment is inspected, tested, surveyed or maintained.