Pitfalls of Buying Fire Extinguishers Online

Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the Responsible Person in a business must ensure that portable fire fighting appliances meet the required standards and are installed and commissioned in situ by a competent technician with the necessary training and certification.

This is backed up by B.S.5306 any breaches in compliance could result in heavy fines or imprisonment.

One way of ensuring compliance is to use a competent person or local specialist fire company such as Fire and Safety Solutions Ltd with all the relevant accreditations.

With the above in mind now let’s have a look at the true cost of purchasing on line excluding VAT.

Lets have a look at the typical cost of purchasing on line excluding VAT.

A typical purchase price online for a 2kg CO2 can be: £24.00
Delivery charge: £8.00
On site commissioning: Typically from £25.00
Total approximate cost: £57.00

Prices are typical examples and do vary. This is for illustrative purposes only.

Purchasing fire extinguishers online is usually only undertaken because the headline grabbing purchase price appears to be lower than from other sources.

Once all of the other supplier charges are taken into account, then it is not so attractive.

There are also many other serious considerations where it is not possible to attribute and include a cost within the above figures.

Other Serious Considerations

• In the event of a fire, the fire authorities would investigate and if need be prosecute the responsible person/company for any breaches under the Regulatory Reform Order (2005), you would need to provide proof of competency for the organisation supplying and maintaining your fire equipment. Your insurance company would also require the same proof in order to satisfy any claim you made.
• It is not unheard of for an extinguisher to be delivered as a box of parts with the buyer expected to assemble all of the parts correctly.
• To be legal, all fire extinguishers have to be commissioned on site by a certified engineer.
• The buyer often has no idea of any specifications or what standards are claimed to be met by the manufacturer.
• What is the detail of any guarantee and how would the extinguisher supplier resolve any claim made against it?
• In an emergency will the extinguisher actually function?
• If it failed to operate when called upon in any emergency who would you claim from?

Choose a reputable company such as Fire & Safety Solutions Ltd

• Here at Fire & Safety Solutions Ltd, we are fully third party accredited and currently implementing ISO9001.
• This means that we have to assess all of our suppliers and their products which are backed up by insurances that we hold and in the case of fire extinguishers it is 5 years.
• The client would also have to ensure that any waste extinguishers purchased on line are disposed of to comply with current waste regulations. Which at the very least will require the client to contract a licensed waste carrier at the clients time and cost.
• Fire and Safety Solutions Ltd are licensed waste carriers.
• Here at Fire & Safety Solutions Ltd, we provide the highest levels of service and top quality products with very competitive prices.

Click on get in touch or request a site survey and find out for yourself just how good we are.