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The Takeover Check

Changing who maintains your voice alarm, or wondering whether you should? Here is what the incoming maintainer should be able to establish, and what it means if they cannot. Seventeen questions, most of them yes or no. No email needed, and nothing you enter leaves your browser unless you choose to send it.

About the building

Three questions so the result fits where you are.

1 Where are you with your voice alarm maintenance?
2 Who looks after the voice alarm now?
3 How many other buildings are you responsible for?

Handover records

The documents a new maintainer will ask for first. Answer for what you could put your hands on today.

4 The as-fitted drawings, showing where the equipment and cables actually went?
5 A zone plan, showing which areas each alarm zone covers?
6 The design, installation and commissioning certificates?
7 A logbook on site, with the weekly tests written in it?
8 The servicing certificates from the last two service visits?
9 A current list of defects still outstanding?
10 A modification certificate for each change made to the system since it was handed over?
11 A copy of the system's configuration, and the passwords to get into it?

The seven areas

BS 5839-8:2023 recommends the incoming maintainer inspects seven named areas and reports anything that does not conform (Clause 41.1). The logbook was one of them. For the other six: is there a record that each has been checked?

12 Sound level readings, area by area, from commissioning or a later service?
13 A record of how well announcements can be understood, from commissioning or a later check?
14 A battery calculation, and a recent test of the batteries with the mains switched off?
15 A record of the cable used, and that it is fire resisting?
16 A record that the fault monitoring itself has been tested, by creating a fault on purpose and checking the panel shows it?
17 Electrical safety test records for the voice alarm's mains supply and equipment?

What the result is, and is not

It's a list built from your answers. It can't see the system or the paperwork, and it isn't an inspection or a compliance assessment. BS 5839-8 is a code of practice: it recommends, it does not require, and not every gap has to be put right. The clause numbers are there so you can check each point against your own copy of the standard. The background is in Changing voice alarm maintainer? The drawings were never theirs to hand over.