What is deemed a fire alarm false alarm?

Please see below my response to a client’s accusation of a wireless fire alarm system installed by Fire Systems Ltd.

“As for your terminology of “false alarms”, you cannot always presume a fire alarm activation is a false alarm because you have been unable to find the reason why the fire alarm system activated.

There have been occasions when the fire alarm system has not been managed correctly and fire alarm activations investigated in the proper matter.

After having discussions with me regarding the so called “false alarms”, I informed you of the correct procedure of what to do in the event of a fire alarm activation. You followed the procedures given and called us out straightaway as instructed following a so called “false alarm”. Our engineer on two occasions identified the fire alarm activations due to the building conditions (damp or water dripping from a smoke detector and cobwebs covering another detector) activating the fire alarm. The engineer’s reports and pictures were emailed to you.  On both occasions, you would not have been able to find the cause of the so called “false alarms” and would have blamed the system. I have to ask myself for those to incidents alone, how many times they had activated the fire alarm, you then blamed the fire alarm for not working correctly, reset the fire alarm, only for the same thing to happen over and over again until you had complained to us. Therefore, my point is, unless a proper investigation has taken place after a fire alarm activation you cannot always say it was a false alarm.”

I also had to inform the client about their legal responsibility of having a fire alarm maintenance contract in place.

As you can see the client presumes that because the fire alarm activates, and he is not always able to find the cause, (or in some instances, I am not convince they even go and investigate), that the wireless fire alarm is at fault.

The fire alarm installer, Fire Systems Ltd installed the system to all the required standards, but the client appears to be unwilling to manage his system correctly.