As an employer or a building owner, it is your job to provide your employees and/ or tenants general safety. You should give them access to first aid whenever they need it and protect them from life threatening accidents such as fires. As a response to this, fire engineering codes in the country mandated that every building, whether commercial or residential should have firefighting and fire safety equipment that will keep your people secure. More than just a requirement, in a way, you can look at these equipment as your investments because they are the things you need to help your employees/ tenants keep their properties and ultimately their lives.
Now that you have realized their importance, the next thing for you to do is determine which among these tools are appropriate for your home/ industry. This part can be a bit trivial because if you have done your research already, then you must know that there are a lot of tools to choose from. And to make things a little more difficult, not all of them are suitable for you.
Like extinguishers for example, did you know that in United Kingdom alone, there are 7 types of extinguishers that are available in the market? They are grouped based on the types of flames they can extinguish and their content.
Here is a simple chart for your reference:
Type of Extinguisher : Classes of Fire It Can Extinguish
Water/ Pressurized Water : A
Foam : A, B
Dry Powder : A, B, C, E
CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) : B, E
Wet Chemical : A, B, F
Class D Powder : D
Halon Gas : Used for exclusively by the military
Note that in this chart, classes of fires are as follows:
o A – for easily combustible substances like paper, cloth and fabric
o B – fires originated from combustible liquids such as gasoline, kerosene and oil
o C – caused by flammable gases
o D – originated from highly reactive and combustible metals
o E – from electrical sparks
o F – kitchen blazes caused by edible fat
Now if you are someone who has always considered extinguishers as something that looks one and the same, then that may be quite an awakening thing for you right? But of course it does not end there, as you scan the shelves, you will find that there are more safety equipment waiting for you. With that much options, the question now is, how are you to determine which is the right one for you and for your office?
Do not stress yourself out with over thinking because you can actually answer your own question by thinking of these three factors:
1. The type of office or industries found in your building – this factor will help you and your marshal identify substances with high risk of catching flames and in turn help you choose the extinguisher appropriate for it.
2. The size of your office – to determine how many units of extinguishers and safety signs you need to mount and post.
3. Your budget – if you have a small operation and you do not really have that much to spend on fire safety equipment, then you can always go for the smaller version of each variety. Extinguishers for example come in small and large sizes to enable them to fit into anyone’s budget.
Those are three factors that will make your selection a bit easier. If you are a novice at this, make sure that you involve someone who knows the trade to make sure that you are making the right decisions and choices.