Everything You Need To Know About Fire and Smoke Curtain Servicing

Architects have been able to open up spaces dramatically with the invention of fire and smoke curtains. Where non-loading bearing walls were once required for health and safety reasons to stop the spread of fire and smoke, fire and smoke curtains have now taken their place.

These curtains are out of sight until they are needed. As they have taken the place of a vital fire safety measure, they need to be well maintained and regularly serviced so that they perform in the event of a fire.

For a facilities manager or domestic homeowner, making sure your fire and smoke curtains remain fully operational has to be top priority. If a fire does occur, and the first line of defence haven’t been maintained, and therefore don’t work when they need to, serious injuries and deaths can occur.

Maintenance of fire curtains is just as important as the initial specification. Through assembly, the curtains themselves are designed, tested and classified to full regulations and standard before they can be installed.

All fire curtain servicing, planned inspections, testing and maintenance should be carried out by the buildings competent and responsible person. This person needs to be fully trained in how to effectively check the fire curtains are performing effectively, that all tests are logged, and that all these maintenance, servicing and testing are conducted in accordance with the manufacturers instructions.

The responsible person should have a rigid timetable for checking for obstructions that might prevent the curtain from deploying and that if any changes to building layout occur that may impact the successful deployment of the fire curtains, corrections should be made.

Monthly checks on escape routes should be carried out with the curtain being operated to confirm it is fully functional.

All staff should be trained by the manufacturer to perform basic weekly tests carried out the same time each week to ensure all fire curtains are operational.