Recent work, written up properly

The building(s): twelve residential blocks across Manchester, Salford and Trafford, three to six storeys, communal L5 and L2 systems in the common parts, managed by one agency for multiple freeholders.

What we found: four incumbent suppliers, two blocks with no current alarm certificate, disconnected detectors in two bin stores, one emergency lighting circuit that had never been duration tested, and no consistent record of the landlord/tenant system boundary anywhere in the portfolio.

What we delivered: first-visit baseline surveys of all twelve blocks in three weeks, a single Managed contract with quarterly common-parts servicing, 27 defects priced and closed within six weeks, and per-building certificate packs in the portal that the agency now forwards to freeholders unedited.

The building: a 42-bed care home in Stockport running a Category L1 system on a conventional panel installed in 2004, with parts no longer available and faults recurring monthly.

What we found: the panel had been silenced-and-reset so often that night staff treated activations as routine. Zone charts did not match the building after two extensions. Three bedroom heads were ionisation types long overdue for replacement, and cause-and-effect for the kitchen gas valve had never been tested.

What we delivered: a phased migration to an addressable panel with detection kept live throughout, completed over four night shifts. Every device re-baselined, new zone charts and cause-and-effect documentation, staff training for all four shift patterns, and a quarterly Total Care contract with false alarm tracking. False alarms fell from roughly five a month to one in the following quarter.

The building: an 85,000 sq ft distribution warehouse in Trafford Park with 13-metre eaves, whose insurer made renewal conditional on a maintained P1 property protection system within 90 days.

What we found: point smoke detectors at full ceiling height, most heavily contaminated, several painted over during a refit, and a panel with no record of any service in four years. Life safety cover technically existed; in practice the system was blind.

What we delivered: a BS 5839-1 redesign using reflective beam detection across the racking aisles and heat detection in the charging bay, installed around despatch windows without stopping operations. Commissioning documentation went to the insurer directly, renewal was secured with two weeks to spare, and the site moved onto a Managed contract with 5am servicing slots to fit the shift pattern.