The September board meeting of Rejoice Lutheran Church started with some immediate facility concerns. Although the sprinkler systems in the upper west classrooms had not passed inspections the last two years, the system had neither been repaired or replaced. It is not that the church council had been intentionally careless, the oversight occurred during the exact time when the congregation was replacing its head pastor who had to retire unexpectedly because of health reasons. In the busy process of finding an interim pastor and then deciding on a permanent replacement, the church council had fallen behind on several building maintenance issues. Moved to the top of the agenda, upgrading and replacing the commercial fire alarms and the fire sprinkler systems became a focus of the September meeting.
This church, unfortunately, is not unlike some non-profit groups that are managed by a board of volunteer council members and sometimes changing leaders. State safety inspectors file reports and complete inspections and insurance companies force their policy holders to maintain safety standards, but sometimes very important updates get overlooked. Instead of waiting for an avoidable problem, doesn’t it make sense to do business with commercial fire alarm companies that can help your business or non-profit group take the extra steps needed to protect the building and those who use it?
In any commercial space that has a kitchen, for example, large oven ranges and non-chemical suppression systems operate effectively 96% of the time. Commercial fire alarms and other services provided by a commercial fire protection
company can provide you peace of mind and safety. In a survey of 119 businesses, for instance, only 35% had any kind of detailed fire evacuation plan. A fire protection company can help your commercial business establish fire evacuation plans, as well as inspect and service commercial fire alarms.
Multiple resident buildings, like apartments, motels and hotels, have special fire protection needs and concerns. Apartment fire alarms obviously have to be able to sense problems in individual units and alert entire buildings or complexes of the need to evacuate. Fire protection contractors can offer a monitoring service that helps owners and landlords know that individual alarms and sprinklers have not been compromised, thus improving the safety of all residents. While half of hotel and motel fires are small, confined fires, hotel and motel fires still result in $76 million in property loss a year. These hotel and motel fires cause an estimated 15 deaths and 150 injuries each year. what are you doing to ensure that your properties and your residents do not become a part of these statistics?