P50 service-free extinguishers are designed to overcome traditional risks from metal extinguishers, mainly corrosion, dinting, pressure loss and chemical ageing of the fire fighting agent. As a result, the chemicals are guaranteed for twice the traditional lifespan of 5 years and the extinguishers do not require any service activity. Instead, the customer visually inspects the extinguishers once a year.
They are kitemarked, safe for use on live electrical fires and offer significant cost savings. Since the start of their sales in 2013 P50s have been installed in thousands of offices, businesses, organisations, universities, colleges, churches, offshore platforms and vessels.
P50 fire extinguishers consist of an extruded 5-layered plastic container, which holds the fire fighting media. Fire fighting foams are corrosive and aggressive to metal, so using an inert plastic cylinder encapsules the contents without any chemical reaction between contents and the cylinder. The extinguishers are also pressurised with inert nitrogen gas. This inert storage system allows foams and powders to be kept in working condition for more than ten years. Traditional metal extinguishers, in contrast, have to be emptied and refilled every five years, as their metal walls often react with the chemicals.
Most extinguishers are permanently pressurised to around 12 to 15 bar. To resist this pressure the P50 cylinder is cocooned with aramid fibre, a material five times stronger than steel on equal weight basis. Such protected, the cylinder-aramid assembly is virtually indestructible.
So that the unit also looks like an extinguisher and to protect the cocoon from cuts or UV light, an external plastic cylinder is fitted and a base is added so that the extinguisher can stand upright. The final step is the addition of nickel-plated brass valves, stainless steel handles and a rubber hose.
P50 extinguishers are kitemarked by BSI and are tested to the most extreme of verification tests during manufacture. The extinguishers have to be able to withstand 12,000 test cycles from zero to 25 bar. They are then crushed flat with a blade and are then re-pressurised to 55 bar without being allowed to leak or fail! An incredible amount of safety margin for an extinguisher that is only pressurised with 12 bars!
Multiple safety features are fitted to P50 extinguishers:
Traditional metal extinguishers either allow direct contact between the metal and the contents of an extinguisher (eg powder extinguisher) or have a painted/sprayed lining on the inside of the extinguisher if they contain water-based extinguisher media. The lining becomes often detached or can be porous leading to potentially dangerous corrosion which is invisible from the outside until it is too late and the extinguisher explosively discharges. To overcome this issue metal extinguishers must be emptied/discharged, internally inspected and then re-filled with fresh media every five years. Unbelievably, most servicing companies do not re-fill anymore but simply replace extinguishers after just 5 years with a brand-new extinguisher!
With traditional extinguishers only having one gauge, only a service engineer can verify the correct operation of the gauge. They have to drill a hole into the front of the gauge, connect a pressurising tool and visually ensure that the needle moves.
Any dint on a metal extinguisher creates a stress-raiser, a starting point for corrosion and leads to instant condemning of the extinguisher. These design problems of metal extinguishers are the reason for the annual service visits by extinguisher engineers.
As the P50 service-free extinguishers cannot corrode, protect the extinguisher media from ageing and have duplicate gauges, there is no requirement to carry out an annual service.
Instead, the customer carries out a simple visual inspection once a year and records the result on the back of the extinguisher and in their fire safety log book. Any other ‘present-and-correct’ inspection is continued as before, of course.
Comparison of metal extinguishers and P50 service-free extinguishers:
| Traditional metal extinguishers | P50 service-free extinguishers | |
|---|---|---|
| Fire fighting media protection |
Contact of fire fighting media with metal can happen causing the break-down of chemicals and corrosion of cylinder. Requires 5-yearly discharge/refill and visual inspection from inside |
Inert plastic container plus inert gas protect the chemicals and completely prevent any risk of corrosion. |
| Pressure display |
Single gauge. Can only be verified by pressurising gauge during service visit |
Dual gauges from different gauge production batches allow easy visual cross-verification to ensure that needles are not stuck |
| Dints |
Any dints or scratches require the immediate replacement of the units, as they could be stress-raisers and can lead to an exploding extinguisher |
The P50 is literally immune to even the most serious knocks, does not dint and will just take up its original shape if compressed. |
| Annual service |
Annual service visits required |
Once installed and commissioned, no annual visits required for ten years |
| 5-yearly extended service |
5-yearly re-fill, or even worse, 5-yearly replacement with new |
no re-fill during ten years. After ten years, the unit is factory-refurbished and then good for another ten years. |
Yes, P50 extinguishers fulfil all legal and certification requirements and meet all the British standards recommendations.
P50 Service-Free Fire Extinguishers:
Regardless of the type of extinguisher you choose to install in your premises, all businesses and organisations have a legal duty under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 to ensure that their fire extinguishers are in the correct position and in good working order. BS 5306-3 also recommends that extinguishers are annually maintained.
Due to the unique construction and robust nature of the P50 Service-Free Extinguishers, a service by an external trained technician is not required to maintain the extinguisher. A responsible member of your staffing team should conduct a simple visual inspection each year and that is all that is needed to check the P50 is in good working order. Free training is provided for this inspection and we offer a free P50 Extinguisher Reminder Service to help you remember.
If any faults are found during the visual inspection, all Safelincs P50 Service-Free Extinguishers are covered by a 10-year warranty and the unit would be repaired or replaced by the manufacturer.
Whether your premises has traditional steel extinguishers or P50 Service-Free Extinguishers, a regular 'walk-by' inspection is required to note any obvious issues with fire safety equipment.
When switching to P50 Service-Free Fire Extinguishers, we recommend that you tell your insurance company as some providers require notification of any changes to your extinguisher provision.
While some customers might decide to replace all traditional extinguishers with P50s in one go, this can be a waste of resources, as there will always be some traditional extinguishers on site which are only a year or two old. Scrapping them to introduce P50 can be avoided. We offers a gradual introduction program for P50 extinguishers where our engineers can identify existing extinguishers of less than 2-3 years old.
We will then devise a program for replacement which usually includes the concentration of metal extinguishers in one specific area (eg one floor in a multi-floor business). The engineers will then service these metal remnants once a year while the customer takes over the responsibility for all the modern service-free P50s. This approach maximises the cost savings achieved by the introduction of service-free extinguishers.
Once installed and commissioned, no annual visits are required by a 3rd party engineer for ten years. It is your responsibility to complete the simple annual visual inspection. The visual inspection includes making sure the extinguisher is in place, clean, not visibly damaged, gauge needles are both in green area and that the hose is not blocked. Safelincs will provide you and your staff with free training on this inspection process as part of the initial installation.
After 10 years, you can then contact Safelincs to arrange to swap out the extinguishers (for a fee) to factory-refurbish the P50 extinguishers so that they can be used for another ten years. You should also contact Safelincs if an extinguisher has been used, vandalised or the layout or use of the building is changing. Safelincs will replace P50 extinguishers free-of-charge if they have been used on a fire.
The annual visual inspection by the customer is recorded in the dedicated text boxes on the back of the extinguisher. The fire safety log book is also updated to make sure the customer can evidence that they are keeping their extinguishers in good condition and, very importantly, that the extinguishers are where they are supposed to be. Any business with any type of extinguisher, metal or P50, is of course also legally bound to carry out regular visual ‘present and correct’ inspections, where their staff will verify that the extinguisher is in place and the gauge needles are in the green. These walk-by checks are also recorded in the fire safety log book (again this is the same for metal and P50 extinguishers).
Safelincs offers customers free online fire safety log books to aid with the recording of annual visual inspections and additional ‘present and correct’ checks. The log book includes other fire safety equipment such as fire alarms, emergency lights etc. The online log book also automatically sends reminders to customers if required.
To find out more about P50 service-free extinguishers, please contact our friendly team on 0800 612 653 or email support@safelincs.co.uk. You can also visit our P50 page for more details or to order the P50.