Maintenance · Guide

Two services and 52 tests: what a year of voice alarm maintenance should contain

British Standard BS 5839-8:2023 sets the intervals, and lists 30 lettered activities across the six-monthly and annual visits. Here is what each visit should include, and who does it.

By Nigel Williams · Published 16 October 2026

Most drivers know their car needs an MOT, the annual roadworthiness test, once a year. Fewer think of the MOT as the maintenance. The MOT checks the car on one day. The service keeps it right between MOTs. And the driver glances at the tyres every week.

A voice alarm system has all three layers. It is easy to sign a maintenance contract that describes only one of them.

Three layers, three different people

A Public Address Voice Alarm (PAVA) system used as part of a fire alarm installation is covered by the code of practice BS 5839-8:2023. Its maintenance section splits the year into three kinds of attention:

• a weekly test, by the user (Clause 39.1)
• servicing by a competent person (Clause 40, commentary) at intervals not exceeding six months (Clause 40.1)
• additional activities at intervals not exceeding 12 months (Clause 40.2)

Do the arithmetic for a year. There are 52 weekly tests and at least two services. That is 54 occasions on which someone should be checking the system. Two of them belong to your maintainer. The other 52 belong to you.

So a contract that promises "annual testing" is describing about one fiftieth of the year.

The weekly test is yours

The weekly test is a light-touch check by premises management, at roughly the same time each week (Clauses 39.1 and 39.2). A manual call point is operated, and someone confirms that the correct emergency message plays in the correct zone. An emergency microphone and its controls are checked. The result goes in the logbook (Clause 39.6).

There is one more recommendation that is easy to miss. Occupants should actually hear the emergency message during a test, preferably monthly and at intervals not exceeding three months, set by a risk assessment for the building (Clause 39.1). A test run at 7 a.m. to an empty building checks the equipment. It does not familiarise anyone with the message.

What the six-monthly service should include

Clause 40.1 lists 20 lettered activities, a) to t). A visit report should let you see that they were done. These are the ones a report should name:

• the logbook examined, to confirm recorded faults were dealt with (40.1 a))
• the electronic fault log reviewed, where there is one, for faults that appeared and then cleared on their own (40.1 f))
• a look for building changes that affect the design: new structures, a change of use, a rise in background noise, an extension (40.1 b))
• at least one automatic fire alarm input operated, to confirm correct, audible and intelligible messages in the correct zones (40.1 i))
• the batteries and their connections examined (40.1 l)), and the temperature near them checked against the manufacturer's recommendations (40.1 j))
• the mains disconnected, to confirm the system carries on from its standby supply under full alarm load (40.1 n))
• the controls and indicators at the control equipment checked (40.1 o)), and fault indication checked by simulation (40.1 p))

Some of these produce nothing you can see on the day. That is why they need to be in the report.

What the annual service adds

Clause 40.2 adds ten more lettered activities, a) to j), at least once a year. Four matter most to a building owner:

• every automatic and manual input operated, with the cause and effect checked across all zones (40.2 a) and b))
• the loudspeakers checked for operation and for damage (40.2 c) and d))
• every loudspeaker circuit impedance measured and compared with the previous year's figure (40.2 i))
• a listening test for intelligibility in every loudspeaker zone (40.2 j)), new in the 2023 edition

The impedance comparison is the quiet one. A single reading tells you little. The same circuit measured a year apart, with the same equipment, shows a drift long before it becomes a fault.

Sound level measurement is not on the routine annual list. The code suggests it where there is reason to suspect levels have changed (40.2, Note 2).

After either visit, outstanding defects should be reported to premises management (Clause 40.3), and an inspection and servicing certificate issued (Clause 40.4).

"Our contract says quarterly, so we're ahead of the standard"

You may be. Quarterly visits are more frequent than the six-monthly maximum interval in Clause 40.1, and that can be worth paying for on a critical site.

But frequency is not content. Four visits that each check the batteries and nothing else do not add up to one annual service. Ask whether the visit reports, taken together over the year, show each 40.1 activity twice and each 40.2 activity once. If they do not, the extra visits have bought you attendance, not maintenance.

Two examples

The clean certificate with no impedance figures. A building has a servicing certificate for every year since handover. None of the reports gives a loudspeaker circuit impedance. Nothing on file shows any circuit was ever compared with the previous year (40.2 i)). The first measurement is now the baseline, and the trend starts from today.

The test nobody hears. The weekly test is done every Monday at 6 a.m. by security, and the logbook is complete. Staff arriving at 9 a.m. have not heard the evacuation message in two years. The equipment test is being done. The occupant exposure in Clause 39.1 is not.

In short

• Three layers: weekly by the user (39.1), six-monthly by a competent person (40.1), and annual additions (40.2).
• That is at least 54 checks a year, and 52 of them are the user's.
• The six-monthly visit has 20 lettered activities and the annual adds ten more; a good report shows which were done.
• Defects are reported (40.3) and a certificate is issued (40.4) after every service.

The MOT was never the maintenance. Neither is the annual certificate.

Next step. Take your last two visit reports and tick off the activities above against them. Anything you cannot find is a question for your maintainer, in writing. If you would like the reports read against the clause list for you, contactus@proaudium.com or 01273 034630.