Do I Need a Fire Alarm and a Sprinkler System?

With a new year upon us, many homeowners and businesses may be going over their annual checklists to make sure their buildings are in order. Fire suppression systems in Longview, TX, are an essential part of any building maintenance checklist—are you sure your building is prepared for fire safety and prevention?

Fortunately, the team at Anchor Safety Inc. is here to help. We field a lot of questions from businesspeople and homeowners about fire safety systems, and there is one question we get quite often: Do I need both a fire alarm and a sprinkler system, or could I just have one or the other?

Here is the short answer: yes, you do need to have both, especially in a place of business. Here is a deeper dive into what fire alarms and sprinkler systems do, and why it is essential that you invest in both for your building.

Fire alarms

The chances are good that at some point in your life, you have had to evacuate a building because a fire alarm went off, whether it was from an actual fire, a fire drill or simply a false alarm.

Fire alarms work by sensing either flames or smoke in a building, and then sounding off a loud alarm to let people know that they are potentially in danger and need to leave the building right away. Fire alarms usually are attached to fire detectors, or they can be manually set off by someone who sees the signs of a fire in your building.

Sprinkler systems

When the smoke in your building reaches a certain level, the emergency sprinkler system will immediately kick in and start pouring water down on your space. Unlike fire alarms, sprinkler systems usually are not used in a fire drill, and they are more difficult to trip up with a false alarm. Sprinkler systems require a certain amount of smoke before they kick in, to avoid unnecessarily damaging anything in your building.

It can be easy to forget your sprinkler system exists if you haven’t ever had a fire in your building. But you need to have it regularly checked to make sure it is still working.

Both are necessary

Here’s the thing: both a fire alarm and a sprinkler system are necessary to ensure your building has effective fire protection. This is because they fulfill different purposes. While a fire alarm exists to alert the people in your building that they need to evacuate immediately, a sprinkler system exists to actually put out the fire, and typically won’t kick in until after you know you need to evacuate.

Ask the experts

Are you worried that your fire safety system is not up to par? Perhaps you just have additional questions about fire suppression systems in Longview, TX.

Whatever issues or questions you might have, the team here at Anchor Safety Inc. is here to help! Get in touch anytime, and we will look forward to helping you create a fire safety plan for your home or business.

Categorised in: Fire Suppression Systems

This post was written by Writer