Voice alarm maintenance to BS 5839-8

Should PAVA maintenance be separate from the fire alarm contract?

Yes. A voice alarm included in the fire alarm contract is usually serviced against BS 5839-1, which has nothing to say about loudspeaker circuit impedance or the year-on-year comparison of it. Those are BS 5839-8 matters, and BS 5839-8 recommends servicing at intervals not exceeding six months (BS 5839-8:2023, Clause 40.1), with further checks at intervals not exceeding 12 months (Clause 40.2).

Nobody did anything wrong to arrive here. The fire alarm company was asked to look after the fire alarm, and the voice alarm came attached to it.

A separate contract gives the system its own standard, its own visit schedule and its own record. It also gives you something to put in front of an auditor that the fire alarm certificate cannot: a reading for every circuit, and last year's reading beside it.

Voice alarm specialist or fire alarm company: what is different on the day?

Unlike a visit written around BS 5839-1, a voice alarm visit on Recommended or Comprehensive works outward from the rack to the last loudspeaker on every circuit, central equipment first.

• Central equipment checked first. One failed amplifier, controller or charger can silence several zones at once, and the standard's commentary on servicing says amplifier failures should be investigated (commentary to Clause 40).
• Standby power tested, not inspected. Battery and charger are tested against what the system has to do: hold the system for 24 hours and then broadcast an evacuate message in every alarm zone for 30 minutes (BS 5839-8:2023, Clause 25.3.5).
• Every circuit measured. Line impedance is read with calibrated equipment, traceable to National Measurement Standards, and compared with the previous reading for that circuit. A pass/fail check tells you the amplifier is not in protection today. The comparison tells you whether the circuit is drifting, and how fast.
• Every loudspeaker listened to, where access permits. Continuous line monitoring watches the cable, not the loudspeaker. A single loudspeaker that has failed internally on an intact circuit is invisible to both end-of-line and impedance monitoring, so the only thing that finds it is a technician standing under it.

The difference is not effort or honesty. It is equipment, time on site and a standard the visit is written against. Fire and security contractors who want to keep the client relationship can bring ProAudium in under their own name.

How is a voice alarm maintained to BS 5839-8?

BS 5839-8:2023 sets out three layers of attention. Weekly testing by the user, with the result entered in the logbook (Clause 39.1). Servicing by the maintainer at intervals not exceeding six months (Clause 40.1). Additional annual checks at intervals not exceeding 12 months (Clause 40.2), after which outstanding defects are reported (Clause 40.3) and an inspection and servicing certificate issued (Clause 40.4).

BS 5839-8 calls for all loudspeaker circuit impedances to be measured and compared to the previous year's readings (BS 5839-8:2023, Clause 40.2 i)). Ideally the same calibrated equipment is used each time. That clause exists for a reason: impedance drift tells you what a pass/fail check cannot.

Two things in the standard are easy to miss, and worth knowing before you compare contracts. Routine servicing is not a review of the design: a design shortfall will not necessarily be found at a service visit, and the maintainer pointing one out does not mean a design review has taken place (Clause 40 commentary). And when a new maintainer is appointed, the code recommends a special inspection to establish the system's condition before routine servicing begins (Clause 41.1). That first round of visits is where the baseline comes from.

The Maintenance Navigator shows what a visit covers for your system and the standards that apply to it, item by item: How a visit runs.

Which level of maintenance does your system need?

Three levels of maintenance. The difference is how many circuits get measured.

Every level is carried out by specialist technicians, with every visit and quote arranged by one office, and leaves a documented record. The difference between them is the depth of testing and the frequency of visits.

Recommended follows BS 5839-8's six-monthly servicing interval and measures every circuit within the year. Comprehensive is for the venue that wants the trend visible at every visit rather than once a year, and a four hour response written into the contract. Essential is a functional check, offered because a measured functional check beats an unmeasured one, and labelled so that nobody mistakes it for compliance.

Who fixes what the visit finds?

The technician who finds a fault does not price the fix. Because remediation work is quoted separately, there is no incentive to miss anything, and every reason to find it. Every fault in the report carries its reading, its location and, where possible, a photograph, so a quotation from anyone can be checked against it.

ProAudium carries out repairs and upgrades, quoted separately from the visit. You can accept the quote, or hand the findings to another contractor. How a fault is traced and what a repair quotation contains: Fault-finding and repairs.

How is your system documented?

Documentation is only as good as the moment it is captured. AllLogged is used by our technicians on every visit to photograph, annotate, and record each loudspeaker as it is tested.

Every photo is tagged with location, status, and job reference. Every record is stored to the cloud the moment it is taken. Nothing is written up later from memory. Nothing is estimated or filled in back at the office.

The result is a time-stamped photographic record of every loudspeaker on your site: exportable, auditable, and available whenever you need it.

• Photo capture on site. Each loudspeaker photographed and logged at the point of testing, not reconstructed afterwards.
• Location & status tagging. Every record carries zone, location, and pass/fault status, linked directly to the maintenance report.
• Cloud-backed records. All data is stored securely to the cloud the moment it is captured. No local-only records that can be lost.
• Exportable evidence. Full photographic exports available per job, ready for your compliance file, insurer, or regulator.

Compliance is more than a checkbox. It is a code of practice: justified deviations, documented and owned by everyone responsible for the system.

Every deficiency we find is reported. Every deviation from BS 5839-8 and BS EN 50849 is documented with its risk level and a recommended action. Repeated issues are escalated through a structured corrective action process.

When questions are asked about a system, by a regulator, an insurer or an incident investigator, that record is everything. Readings and photographs are recorded on site, at the time of the test.

Is this the right call for your system?

ProAudium works on voice alarm, emergency sound, EVCS and PAGA across London and the South East, at venues such as Gatwick Airport, Olympia London, Fulham FC, Brighton Centre and Drusillas. If you need the lowest price for one annual visit to a small system, ProAudium is probably not the right call, and a good local fire alarm company will look after you well.

Start the conversationOr call 01273 034 630.

Before you switch

Our fire contractor already services the PAVA.
Then the last report should list an impedance reading for every loudspeaker circuit, next to last year's. If it does not, they cannot be shown to have been measured. Fire and security contractors can also bring ProAudium in under their own name.

We already have a certificate.
A certificate records that a visit happened. The readings record the condition of the system. It's worth asking for the readings.

Changing contractor means starting from nothing.
The first round of visits sets the baseline: every circuit is measured within the first year on Recommended and Comprehensive, and every loudspeaker is photographed and logged with its location where access permits. From then on, every reading has one to compare against.

Who fixes what you find?
ProAudium carries out repairs and upgrades, quoted separately from the visit. You can accept the quote, or hand the findings to another contractor.

We cannot reach full compliance this year.
It does not have to happen in one year. A compliance roadmap phases the work across budget cycles, and each phase stays valid.

Reviewed on 1 October 2026 by Nigel Williams.