Manual call points

[Lucy]

Grateful for some advice please. We have a four bed house which is now a HMO under additional licensing. It has a twinflex fire alarm but no manual call points. Does the legislation require manual call points?  thanks Lucy

[Tom Sutton]

Because it is a HMO under additional licensing the Housing Act is the principal legislation the local council is the enforcing authority but most enforcing authorities accepted the Guidance on fire safety provisions for certain types of existing housing as the national guidance. You have not provide sufficient information but I would say the fire alarm required is a grade A or D depending on how many floors, which to my knowledge there is no facility to connect a manual call box on a grade D but there is on a grade A. You need to study the attached guide to see which type of fire alarm you have and require according to the guide.

[AnthonyB]

Some manufacturers of Grade D systems do provide call points.

If you have a Rafiki (Fike) Twinflex fire alarm panel it is a BS5839-1 commercial fire alarm panel and call points can be added (they must be genuine Twinflex call points or they won't work - you need to get a fire alarm specialist to do the work).

The number of floors you have means that under the benchmark guidance you should have a grade A system (which the Twinflex is) and that means call points will be required.