How Frequently Do Fire Curtains Need To Be Maintained - GWL Service & Maintenance

Posted by Liz Seyi on June 30th, 2024

Hopefully, the fact that you are reading this indicates you are already well aware of the critical role that fire curtains play as part of a broader fire-engineered design solution. 

In a world in which open-plan layouts have become more popular in many buildings, fire curtains are often installed in settings where fire doors are not an option due to a lack of walls. 

Fire curtains consist of fire-resistant material, and they are typically stored discreetly in a metal headbox situated above a doorway, ceiling, or lobby. If a fire breaks out and a fire alarm or local detector is activated, this can trigger the release of the fire curtain, which falls vertically to obscure the given doorway, space, or lift shaft. 

You can probably easily imagine, then, that if a fire curtain at your premises has a fault that means it fails to deploy to its operational position in a fire situation, the building and its occupants could be seriously imperilled.  

Are you having your fire curtains serviced often enough? 

If you have fire curtains installed in a professional setting, it is a legal requirement to have them maintained. You should be looking to have any active fire curtains in your building serviced at least twice a year. 

There might be certain circumstances in which once-yearly maintenance of fire curtains would be OK; however, this is not advisable for critical fire safety equipment. Indeed, there may be certain factors that make it necessary for fire curtains to be serviced more frequently – for example, if the fire curtain system is old, or if there is an especially high number of occupants in the building. 

From a legal standpoint in the UK, the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order gives the building occupier responsibility for making sure that all fire safety measures are always maintained in an operational state. As part of this, building occupiers need to maintain their fire curtains in accordance with the instructions of the manufacturer. 

Building occupiers should be aware of the BS 8524 product standard, which focuses solely on active fire curtain barrier assemblies. There are two parts to this standard: BS 8524-1 (Specification) and BS 8524-2 (Code of practice for application, installation, and maintenance). 

If you are reading this as a building occupier, you should adhere to the recommendations set out in BS 8524-2, as any breaches could lead to prosecution. 

You don’t need to look elsewhere for fire curtain maintenance 

Our fire curtain maintenance professionals at GWL can advise on your situation, and help to ensure you take all the right servicing and preventative maintenance steps with your property’s fire curtains. 

To learn more, please reach out to us at our London or Cardiff offices, by calling +44 (0) 2920 647573 or contacting our team via email. We will strive to respond within 24 hours.