Fire Alarm Monitoring Services
If you are a business owner, protecting your property from the dangers of fire is going to be very high on your list of priorities. One of the questions that is often asked of a business owner by insurance companies and concerned friends is, who’s protecting your property when you are not there?
Having a fire alarm fitted is required by law for business premises that employ over a certain number of people, or when you operate from a building that isn’t on one level and isn’t open-plan where the chances of detecting and dealing with a fire are better.
So, you have your fire alarm system all wired up and working, but what if your fire alarm gets activated while you are away from the property? Most business owners have an alarm set up that is there to alert staff about an outbreak of fire, enabling them to safely evacuate the building and the fire services can then be called to deal with the fire emergency.
Very many business premises are located in remote sites such as industrial estates that can be mostly empty and devoid of people outside of working hours. What if your alarm is triggered during the night and there is no-one around to hear it or respond to it by calling out the fire service? Could you face the thought of waking up one morning to the devastating news that your business has been burnt to the ground overnight? This would be difficult news for any business owner to take.
24/7 Fire Alarm Monitoring
The obvious solution to this situation is to take up round the clock fire alarm monitoring by connecting your alarm to a remote ARC (Alarm Receiving Centre). These are operated by companies who will actively monitor your fire and / or burglar alarm day and night.
Not only does having a service like this give you a great peace of mind that your business premises is being protected overnight, but also at other times when it is unoccupied, such as during seasonal holidays such as Christmas and New Year as well as weekends and bank holidays.
The monitoring centre will follow your instructions when then need to alert someone about an alarm, such as the fire service directly, or a designated keyholder for your company who will respond appropriately.
Not only can fire alarm monitoring help to save the lives of anyone at risk in your building, but they can also help to greatly reduce the damage done to your property in the event of a fire. Having an early alert system in place to tackle a blaze before it can take serious hold of your business premises can also help to protect any specialist equipment or machinery from fire or smoke damage and will also mean a much reduced claim on your business insurance. This in turn will help to keep your insurance renewal prices lower as most insurance companies favour the extra protection given by constant alarm monitoring services.
Hiring a fire alarm monitoring company
When looking for a company that performs round the clock fire alarm monitoring, look for one that will also offer regular maintenance services too. This can help identify and fix any any issues or malfunctions within your fire alarm system, such as faulty sensors or damaged wiring. This can help keep costs down by combining your fire alarm maintenance needs with your monitoring service and can be more cost-effective than hiring two separate service providers to perform each duty for you.
A good monitoring company can also keep you abreast of the latest technological advances in monitoring services that could be added to your security system. This can help to improve fire safety risks and bring down your business insurance renewal costs too.
Most alarm monitoring services will also include your burglar alarm system as well as your fire alarm system, so they will be in a position to ether call out the police or local fire service to your property – whichever is needed to be called for the incident in hand.