Evacuate

Expect the office to be humming @ 95 dB(A), everyone wear ear protection and a noise reduction program in place to reduce below the action levels involving revenue and capital expenditure.

What about BS5839? Ok its not law, but its does state the sounder levels in celluar office may be as low as 60dB, but generally not lower than 65 dB. Therefore would it be reasonable to suggest that a sounder of >100 dB is excessive in an office environment?

If it was me making the decision I would suggest lowering it to a minimum of 65db, or otherwise 5db above background noise levels if it is a noisy envrionment.

If it can be lowered as above then fine, but don't forget it may need to be heard in the toilets and or any other closed off area you may have. I had similar issue some years ago in the office, but it was not anywhere near as loud in the loo's. Office personnel had to put up with the very short duration noise.

We actually have 3 sounders in close proximity all ommiting around the same noise level and all wildly above the ambient level of noise - I think i will invite the Alarm poeple along for a chat...Like all simple fixes in our world this will like grow arms and legs...

Forgot to add, my desk was one of the closest to the sounder.

Its a fire alarm sounder. Normal testing done weekly. however we have complaints from staff that it is excessive. I took a noise level measurement and it levelled out at 104 dB. BS5839 states such areas (cellular offices) can be as low as 65 dB... What would you do? Lower the sounder to 65 or 70? Am I being daft here? Garfield No you're not being daft, and yes you can lower the volume but you risk it being ignored, it having been loud for so long. We did a mass exit test last year, where before hand there was a false alarm from some equipment, consequently on the proper alarm one department did not move. Whilst in some areas we have sounders that are combined with flashers ... correction strobes - if it was a flasher he would go home with an inferiority complex after the ladies in our office had verbally abused him - the strobes give a clear indication for hard of hearing, but with your loud sounders continuously running it would be an incentive for them to exit whether a drill or for real. Just make sure that the weekly test lasts no more than a few seconds. Badger

Garfield The alarms are generally designed to be >100dB, purposely, to make it uncomfortable for people to stay in the office! Its just one of the ways to make people do what you want (evacuate) during an emergency situation when people do not behave as normal. Still, Ian had it bank on.........

We raised ours to 90 dB to make sure that people leave the office as soon as they hear the alarm not when after they have finished that report/ game they are playing. We do not test the alarm during working hours so that's not an issue.

I wish that 5839-1 was not so wooly in its wording. From that document: '44.2 Recommendations for weekly testing by the user When testing the fire detection system, there may be a need to isolate ancillary outputs. The following recommendations apply: a) Every week, a manual call point should be operated during normal working hours.' I know about the special status and all that, but everything is 'recommendations' and 'should' which in the past has caused me to have arguments with those who misunderstand the BS status, and as a result of wooly wording, use that to not do things - 'It's only recommended, not a requirement' and all that. Had that with NHS Firecode loads of times too. People use it as an excuse not to do things and save money in the short term, until the Fire Service/fire manager come in and tell you to do it anyway and to get a grip, which costs more money than if you had done it in the first place - things don't normally get cheaper. Not saying that this is why AK's alarm system is not tested during office hours, by the way - I am interested too in why that is the case. But I have a feeling - the spidey sense is tingling - that telling a Fire Service enforcement officer that you do not test the fire alarm during working hours is going to require robust explanation.