We recently had our fire panels and other hardware tested & serviced. The company employed to do it have advised that we should install secret key switches on each fire panel for various reasons such as fire panel maintenance and perhaps to ensure no one can interupt the power supply to the panel? Can someone advise oiif installing these switches to an existing set up is a legal requirement or best practice please?

Fire panels will normally have a key to allow authorised persons to enable/disable the panel or to reset after activation - nothing secret about this. 

Originally Posted by: Howey42722

We recently had our fire panels and other hardware tested & serviced. The company employed to do it have advised that we should install secret key switches on each fire panel for various reasons such as fire panel maintenance and perhaps to ensure no one can interupt the power supply to the panel? Can someone advise oiif installing these switches to an existing set up is a legal requirement or best practice please?

You must be able to safely isolate the control panel for maintenance & repairs, and that means all live conductors.

You must prevent the panel from being isolated in advertently.

You need to check BS7671 & the relevant part of BS5839.

You should have a means of isolation and a secret key switch is an ideal solution as it prevents the unit being isolated unless required.

These can be nothing special, think something like an emergency light test switch in red and labelled and you are not far wrong, there are more compelx items which include circuit protection if that is required, but, it obviously is not in your case as this has already been dealt with hasn't it?