Batteries – More Important Than You Think

Batteries in Fire Alarm Control Panels, Transponders, Booster (NAC) Panels, Emergency Lights, and Diesel Fire Pumps:

The backup batteries in your electronic life safety systems are engineered to allow them to perform their intended functions in the event of a power failure. Depending on the system design, they can keep your systems functional for a day (24 hours) or a weekend (60 hours). During that backup period, they should retain enough power to allow the system to sound an emergency evacuation or to light the way to safety. In the case of diesel fire pumps, the batteries, just like in your car or truck, supply the “cranking” power required to start the pump engine when called upon. We all know what happens when your car battery fails – you’re stuck!

Do you know how many and what type of batteries are in your life safety systems? How about their locations? Do you know the life expectancy of each? Are you sure that they are all correctly charged, ready, and able to perform their duty? If any of them were not or were approaching the end of their lifespan, wouldn’t you want to know before an actual emergency so that you could have them replaced to avoid even the possibility of their failure? An experienced and reliable testing and inspection services provider like Protegis Fire & Safety can be your assurance that you don’t even have to ask or answer these questions. Yearly battery testing is recommended, as an integral part of regularly-scheduled inspections of your life safety systems, to ensure the protection of your people and property against the danger of fire.

The worst time to find out that your life safety system cannot perform its designated function is during an emergency. Protegis installs, inspects, services, and monitors systems (with batteries!) at locations throughout the United States.