How Do You Perform a Monthly Fire Extinguisher Inspection?

Written on March 29th, 2011 at 7:48 pm in Fire Extinguishers

If you own a fire extinguisher in your Maryland, DC or Virginia building, you should already know how important it is to have it inspected regularly to make sure it will be able to protect you during a fire. But let’s be honest – no one can really expect you to call a fire protection services company every single month to schedule a fire extinguisher inspection, especially if the fire extinguisher inspection process is so quick. So what else can you do?

Monthly Fire Extinguisher Self Inspection

Fortunately, monthly fire extinguisher inspections are easy enough that you can do them by yourself! While self inspections should not replace annual professional fire extinguisher inspections, they can definitely supplement them. Monthly fire extinguisher inspections consist of just a few simple steps:

• First, make sure your fire extinguishers are located in their proper places, are easily visible (and accessible!) during a dire, and are not blocked by anything. In addition, make sure everyone in your building knows where the fire extinguishers are so they will be able to get to them quickly and easily in an emergency.
• Next, make sure that the fire extinguisher pin is intact and that the tamper seal is not broken. At this point during the fire extinguisher inspection, you should check to make sure there are no signs of obvious physical damage, corrosion or leakage, and make sure the fire extinguisher nozzle is not clogged.
• Make sure the pressure gauge is in the green zone, indicating that the fire extinguisher pressure is adequate. Don’t forget to lift the fire extinguisher to make sure it’s full. This is an extremely important step of your fire extinguisher inspection, because a fire extinguisher that looks fine on the outside but is not properly pressurized will be harder to spot on a day to day basis, potentially causing serious problems in the event of a fire.

• Make sure the operating instructions on the nameplate are legible and facing outward so they are clearly visible. This step of the fire extinguisher inspection process shouldn’t be much of a problem if you haven’t touched for fire extinguisher in a while.
• Next, check the tag on the fire extinguisher. All fire extinguishers must be professionally inspected and tagged once a year by a licensed fire protection services company. If it has been more than one full year since the date of your last professional fire extinguisher inspection, call a fire protection services company.
• Finally, initial and date the back of the tag to state that you performed your fire extinguisher inspection.

Note: while these monthly fire extinguisher self inspections are important, they should only supplement annual fire extinguisher inspections – not take the place of them. If it has been more than 12 months since the date on your fire extinguisher tag and you are looking for fire extinguisher inspection Maryland, Virginia or Washington, DC, call Guardian Fire Protection today!