Frequently Asked Questions

The building owner or appointed responsible person carries the duty to keep fire and life-safety systems in working order and to keep evidence of inspection, servicing and any defect rectification. That duty can be supported by a competent service provider, but it cannot be delegated away. In practice, an insurer or auditor will ask the responsible person for the records — so the documentation has to exist and be current.

Maintenance is a recurring process, not a single annual visit. As a rule of thumb, simple visual and functional checks are done monthly by an on-site person, more detailed inspections quarterly, and full competent-person servicing annually — with the exact tasks set by the standard for each system (SANS 10139 for detection, SANS 14520 for suppression, SANS 10114-2 for emergency lighting, SANS 1253 for fire doors). Our maintenance checklists break the cadence down system by system.

Conventional detection reports a fire to a zone — a group of devices — but not which device triggered. Addressable detection gives every device a unique address, so the panel shows the exact location and reports faults at device level. For most commercial and industrial buildings, addressable is the better choice: faster location, granular fault reporting and the flexible cause-and-effect needed to drive suppression, dampers and evacuation.

It depends on whether the room is occupied, the assets being protected and the space available for cylinders. Chemical clean agents (such as FM-200 or Novec 1230) act in seconds, leave no residue and need less storage. Inert gases (such as argon or IG-541 blends) are people-safe by design but need more cylinder space. CO₂ is effective but only suitable where occupancy can be excluded. We size the agent and design concentration to your specific room — and confirm the enclosure can actually hold it. See the gas suppression guide for detail.

A gas suppression system only works if the enclosure holds the agent at design concentration for the required hold time. A room-integrity (door-fan) test measures how leaky the room is and predicts whether it will retain the agent. It is needed at commissioning and should be repeated periodically, because changes after handover — a new cable tray, an altered duct, a failed damper — can quietly defeat an otherwise correct system.

The fire rating belongs to the complete tested assembly: the rated leaf, a compatible frame, intumescent and smoke seals, rated hinges and hardware, a working self-closing device, and any matching glazing — all undamaged and within the tested gap tolerances, with evidence of the door's rating. Swapping in non-rated hardware, propping the door open, or letting seals fail can void the rating. Fire doors are governed by SANS 1253 and SANS 10400-T and need routine checks plus periodic competent inspection.

There is no single fixed period — set retention deliberately against operational need and any insurer or sector requirement, then size storage to match. Recorded footage is personal information under POPIA, so it must be handled lawfully: purpose-limited, access-controlled, kept no longer than needed, protected against misuse, and accompanied by signage notifying people that the area is monitored.

Intrusion systems under SANS 50131 are graded 1 to 4 according to the risk and the likely attacker's capability. The grade determines detection technology, tamper resistance and the alarm-signalling path. Matching the grade to the real risk matters both ways — under-grading leaves a gap, over-grading wastes budget — which is why we start from a risk assessment rather than a product.

It must not — and a correctly designed system never does. Under SANS 60839-11-1, access control is integrated with the fire system so that on a fire alarm, doors on escape routes fail to a safe state and people can always get out, while security is preserved elsewhere. Egress and life-safety always take precedence over security objectives.

Yes, and there are real benefits: CCTV verifying an intrusion or access event, access control releasing on fire alarm, and a single point of monitoring all reduce response time and false dispatches. Integration must respect life-safety priorities — fire and egress always take precedence — and the connecting infrastructure follows the relevant installation standards. See the CCTV and security guide for how this is approached.

A complete handover should give you everything needed to operate, maintain and prove the system: as-built drawings and zone plans, a verified cause-and-effect matrix, device-level commissioning test results, the commissioning or service certificate, operator instructions, and a recommended maintenance schedule. This is the evidence an insurer or auditor expects to see — incomplete documentation is treated as an incomplete system.

Yes. Kharon designs, installs, services and maintains fire and security systems for commercial, industrial and critical-infrastructure environments — data centres, electrical rooms, warehousing, manufacturing, control rooms, healthcare and similar facilities. We do not position our work as consumer or residential security.