Fire logbooks are an essential tool to help you demonstrate compliance with fire safety legislation, helping with effective organisation and monitoring of your fire safety. As the digital world continues to develop, there are now digital alternatives to traditional paper logbooks.
Regulatory Reform Order 2005
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 states that a ‘responsible person’ for the premises is responsible for ensuring fire safety facilities and equipment is maintained and working. This requires checking, maintaining and repairing fire safety equipment, and a fire logbook is a good way to assure compliance as duty of care to employees and visitors to keep your premises fire safe.
Each logbook should be customised to specific business and building needs, outlining what fire safety precautions are in place, when they were maintained, and if any faults have arisen in the past.
Logbooks should be accessible to all parties for inspection in case of a fire event, providing an easily accessible overview and giving clarity to staff, service engineers and firefighters.
What to Include
Fire logbooks should include the following information:
- Emergency contacts – a list of people to be contacted in event of fire. This section should be easy to find in an emergency.
- Fire alarms, systems and panels – recording maintenance to ensure all in working order, detailing weekly testing from various fire alarm call points to ensure that they are fully operational. You should record every time a fire alarm goes off, even if it is a false alarm.
- Extinguishers – detailing regular inspections, including that of any other fire fighting equipment such as blankets and sprinklers, to ensure they are in working condition, plus records of maintenance.
- Signage – recording where correct signage is on the premises, ensuring it is fitted correctly and replaced if required.
- Escape routes – detailed map and written instructions on how individuals can evacuate the premises in the event of fire. This goes hand in hand with your fire evacuation policy.
- Lighting – documenting maintenance and servicing, to ensure perfect working order.
- Fire doors – evidencing quarterly inspections to ensure fully functional.
- Fire training – to ensure all employees understand precautions and what to do in the event of a fire, training should be given regularly and detailed with dates, attendees and training.
Paper Logbooks
Paper logbooks are the traditional way to store fire safety information, consisting of a physical book – often red in colour to draw attention – that can be filled in manually and given to those who require more details. Paper logbooks have been instrumental in fire safety, and are still used in millions of establishments nationwide. However, restrictions with paper logbooks include that they can only be updated by one person at a time, could become damaged, and lack security. These issues can be overcome, it just requires organisation from the ‘responsible person’ and good fire processes.
Docs-Store Fire Alarm Logbook
Docs-Store is a manufacturer of electrotechnical compliance documents, and with 30 years of experience in the industry they are a trusted supplier of branded logbooks to help with compliance.
The Docs Store Fire Alarm Logbook allows you to keep track of your fire compliance, assisting the ‘responsible person’ on your premises to coordinate and maintain a fire safety record keeping system.
Included in their renowned fire logbook is space for essential details of your fire system – allowing you to record panels, zones, alarms and detectors – with the ability to report and keep track of weekly testing schedules. The logbook also includes advice and best practices, to aid you in compliance.
Paul Elcock from The Docs Store, spoke to us about advantages of paper logbooks:
“We manufacture high-quality handover documents that represent the best of the installing company, as let’s face it, much of the work that the installing contractor has undertaken will be hidden away. These logbooks can be used on a daily, weekly or monthly basis so are a reminder to show who is providing the ongoing maintenance providing further work. Discount Fire Supplies can also supply these to contractors with their own branded covers.
For the responsible person of the building, there is guidance in our logbooks providing technical reasons why they need to carry out these ongoing tests may not be known to them, therefore we provide some relevant information throughout each book explaining the reason why they have to complete certain necessary sections.”
Digital Logbooks
Digital logbooks have been around since 2017 after the Grenfell disaster, as an alternative to paper logbooks, available through software such as Tio Fire.
Digital logbooks give you the opportunity to record activity, such as inspections, risk assessments, repairs, procedures, activations and faults – similar to paper logbooks but with the advantages of being accessible online allowing all concerned parties to have automatic input with accurate data. Additionally, digital logbooks allow you to view when activity has been carried out, and when maintenance is due, allowing you to stay compliant and ensure your premises are fire safe.
As these systems are online, users can access them from anywhere at any time, from both mobile and desktop devices. Additionally, digital logbooks are not lost or misplaced in an emergency, unlike their paper counterparts which may be damaged in a fire. With added security, it ensures logs are kept safe, accurate and up-to-date.
Tio Fire Safety
Tio Fire Safety is a software to help manage fire safety and ensure compliance.
The Tio Fire Safety software allows you to keep digital fire records, to comply with health and safety. It is more than just a fire safety app, it configures 5 systems in 1, giving you the functionality to log fire, water, gas, electricity and security of your premises, all in one place.
Features of the software streamline your procedures, and grow with you – allowing you to view a multiple premises dashboard – to register all building assets.
Additionally, you can easily migrate from traditional manual logbooks by scanning in your paper documents straight to the app, to ensure all data and information is up-to-date. There is also a helpful interactive tutorial to help users get to grips with the application, with features built to be user-friendly.
The Tio software is currently available directly to both end users and contractors.
Testimonial from Jason Hill at Tio Fire Safety:
“Switching to digital logbooks is a free way for contractors to become more competitive when pricing jobs because they no longer need to sell & install any red metal boxes. Instead, your engineer just hands the customer a free digital logbook QR code sticker to place on the fire panel or near the entrance of the building. Better yet, contractors get an unlimited free supply of digital fire logbooks from Tio as part of the Partner Programme”
Logbook Outlook
It is best practice to have an up-to-date and thorough log of all fire safety and procedures in each of your establishments, to ensure that your business is compliant. Whether you choose a paper version or digital version, keeping a logbook is essential for the safety of your staff, customers and premises.
