Digitising the Fire Alarm Logbook

We are decades into the digital age; gone are the days of VHS, DVD, CDs, and even newspapers and books. Today everything seems to sit on a digital cloud or in some form of digital state. Now it’s coming to the time when those last remaining items are now seeing the jump to electronic. The fire alarm logbook is one of those items people forget about but should use at least once a week. With that in mind, we are pleased to announce that we have now made that push to turn it digital and offer our Electronic Logbook.

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22/04/22
Digital Fire Alarm Logbook

What is a Fire Alarm Logbook?

Property managers/owners must have a designated ‘responsible person’ charged with keeping accurate records of the fire alarm system. The responsible person does this by recording these events in a document called a Fire Alarm Logbook. It then resides in a safe location where it can be accessed at any time by an interested party such as building control, fire officer etc. The logbook is vital to your fire alarm system and part of a legal requirement (regulatory reform fire safety order), so you must have one.

 

What Does a Fire Alarm Logbook Do?

The fire alarm logbook isn’t just a book where the weekly fire alarm test gets recorded. It also offers information on a host of other things such as:

  • Register of responsible persons
  • Document the system design category and variations
  • Details of the system installed and any modifications
  • Record of personal receiving centre instruction
  • False alarm Log
  • Routine test log
  • Record of inspection
  • Events log

From the above list, it’s clear that the fire alarm logbook is more than a fire alarm checklist.

 

Why is Protec Making it Electronic?

There’s a host of reasons why it’s a good idea to turn the Fire Alarm Logbook electronic, and we can explain a bit more in further detail.

 

Eco Friendly

First of all, let’s start with the big one, the environment! It’s now a fact that the push to make all things green across all industries is coming thick and fast with the UK government’s pledge to become Net-zero by 2050. With that, it means something must be done before then, and it’s always better to start with the small things and build on them. All our datasheets, manuals and technical documents all sit in the digital format, so it was only natural that the Fire Alarm Logbook followed suit. Protec sells over 500 logbooks a year which might not be a vast amount, but when our approach to our office attempts to be a paper-free environment, it makes sense to offer the option for our clients to apply the same mentality if they like. Any reduction in printed material reduces the need for paper and, in turn, reduces the effort needed for saving the environment.

 

Safer Going Forward

It’s alarmingly common for an engineer or responsible person to turn up to a site and ask to see a fire alarm logbook. It’s either lost or misplaced, meaning all the vital information it holds has also gone. The Electronic Logbook solves this by sitting up on the digital cloud accessed from your Client Account Portal. It means it’s accessible from any location 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with no chance of the logbook becoming lost, damaged, or misplaced. The electronic logbook benefits when the worst should happen, and a fire occurs. It’s the essential document that proves your fire alarm system is in a correct operational state and isn’t lost in the fire. The electronic logbook isn’t in a physical form to be engulfed and destroyed in the fire. So, ensuring that after the incident, the relevant people can look at the logbook and prove everything was as it should be before the fire broke out.

 

All Information in One Place

As previously mentioned, the electronic logbook is on your Customer Account Portal. The function allows you to access the building fire alarm logbook from any location, no matter where you are. The ease of accessibility becomes a strong point if you are a property manager over multiple sites. It means that you can keep up to date on all of your various locations around the country from wherever you are, ensuring that all fire alarm tests, faults and false alarms are recorded correctly. If they are not up to date, you can then implement the correct measures to rectify this.

 

More Than Just Fire Alarms

It’s not just a fire alarm logbook we offer digitally. We also provide a general logbook for all our other systems. This means just like the fire alarm, you can keep up to date with routine maintenance and testing of different life and property safety systems such as extinguishers, Emergency Voice Communication, CCTV and more.

 

How do I get an Electronic Logbook?

The Electronic logbook comes FREE as part of an active service agreement with Protec and can be added to your customer account portal. All you need to do is contact your customer service advisor, and they can talk you through how to add one to your customer account portal.