10 Work Place Safety Essentials When Starting a Business.

You may think that business start-up’s in the current economic climate would be a rare occurrence yet government statistics still report “Business Births” as they term it at approaching 200,000 a year. Starting a business is stressful enough with so much red tape and regulations to plough through. Work place safety including fire safety is just one aspect but at least we can help with a rundown of 10 essential provisions to put budding entrepreneurs on the right side of the law.

• Display a Health and Safety Law poster prominently in the premises either on reception or in a communal staff area.
• Display Fire Signs detailing what to do in the event of fire, the designated escape routes and fire assembly points.
• Display a No Smoking Sign at each public entrance to the premises
• Conduct a fire risk assessment and utilise the outcome to determine any extra fire safety provisions such as Fire Extinguishers. If you need help purchase one of our self help manuals or step by step fire risk assessment tools. It’s far less expensive that employing a consultant.
• Purchase a Fire Log Book to record fire safety training, fire equipment maintenance records, fire drills and fire action plans. This is mandatory if you employ 5 or more people.
• Accidents can happen in any business so a First Aid Kit is a good safeguard.
• If the business extends over several rooms install a Rotary Hand Bell in a usually occupied room that can be heard throughout the building.
• In unoccupied rooms such as storage, server or computer rooms that present a fire risk install Smoke Detectors. For large premises extending to many rooms or more than one floor interlinked wired smoke detectors and alarms are preferred.
• If in the course of your business activity you store and use quantities of hazardous substances, described generally as toxic, corrosive or flammable you should store these in a suitable Flammable Storage Cabinet compliant with the COSHH or DSEAR regulations.
• Having done all this you should then bring in your insurers and ensure you have third party liability insurance appropriate to your business. Having a clear fire and safety policy in place should help with the premiums.

You can find more information in our Advice section on Fire Safety Management and if you have any further tips to help start up businesses let us know.

Safety Tips for Bonfire Night

Fawkes Night on November 5th is an ancient tradition originally intended as a celebration of the failure of Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators to blow up Parliament and King James I in particular. Although the history is largely forgotten, taking the opportunity to gather the family round a blazing fire and watch a fire work display is still popular. Fire Safety is paramount and many accidents can be avoided by good preparation and some common sense. Here are some tips to ensure an enjoyable and safe bonfire night.

• First of all consider attending an organised event rather than risking your safety by having a garden bonfire.
• If you do have a home bonfire warn your neighbour’s beforehand as a courtesy or better still invite them to the party, so they are less likely to complain.
• It’s a good idea to wear protective clothing if you are in charge of the fire. Flame retardant Overalls, sturdy boots and flame resistant leather rigger gloves are inexpensive safeguards and are useful the year round.
• Only burn dry material as damp fuel generates more smoke and never burn plastics or car tyres as they can produce highly toxic gases.
• Build your bonfire away from sheds, timber fences, trees and any overhanging cables or telephone wires
• Use firelighters to get the fire going. Petrol and paraffin may flare up and can get out of control quickly
• Use a fire bucket filled with sand to light your fireworks and launch rockets.  At the end of the night the sand can be used to smother the fire.
• Have a water fire extinguisher handy or a connected garden hose with a spray attachment nearby in case of emergencies
• Set up a cordon to keep children well away from the bonfire
• Don’t throw any fireworks into the fire even if you believe they are spent
• Sparklers are fun but can be dangerous to small children. Always supervise them and provide a bucket of water to dunk the spent sparklers after use.

Laws governing fireworks
You should also be aware that there are Laws governing the use of fireworks. Breaking these laws can result in fines of up to a £5000 and 3 month imprisonment.
For Bonfire night fireworks can only be sold to adults over 18 years of age and only between the 15th October and the 10th November.
It is an offence to set off fireworks in the street or public places without a licence. If caught the police can give you an on-the-spot fine of £80
Even on Bonfire night and the nights surrounding this date fireworks must not be set off after midnight.

Finally don’t be tempted to buy cheap fireworks from “out of the back of a van” dealers and temporary unlicenced shops. Look for fireworks marked BS 7114 or a “CE” mark that shows the fireworks meet British or European safety standards.

Have a safe bonfire night. If you have any further tips or can recommend good organised events let our readers know.

10 things to do for safety in the home

1. Fit smoke alarms – the simplest and cheapest safeguard to give early warning of a fire, prevent a major fire developing and give you time to get you and the kids to a safe place. Fire safety in the home contains essential advice on what and where to fit.

2. Ensure you have adequate home contents insurance. It’s cheaper than you think and is even cheaper if you combine with buildings insurance, have an intruder alarm, lockable windows and a good no claims record.

3. Gather all your important documents together including passports and put them in a secure place – a decent quality home safe preferably with fire resistance or a fire safe security cash box is ideal. Be sure to bolt it down to something solid to thwart the opportunist thief.

4. Reduce nuisance phone calls that invariably come in the middle of the evening meal by registering with the Telephone Preference Service at www.tpsonline.org.uk or call 0800 398 893. This only works for UK organisations and takes about a month for these calls to stop. Unfortunately some other unwanted calls are more difficult to stop.

5. Put a No Cold Callers sign on the gate – they used to say No Hawkers in my day but the effect is the same in preventing hard sell salesman and dubious religious disciples arriving at your back door. You can download a No Cold – Callers sign from www.moneysavingexpert.com/nocallers

6. Invest in a fire blanket and ABF or Wet Chemical fire extinguisher for the kitchen where 75% of all home fires start. Make sure everyone in the house knows where they are kept and how to use them.

7. Draw up a Fire Action Plan with the whole family to agree what to do in the event of a fire and who should do it.

8. If you have lockable windows that may provide a means of escape make sure there is a release key in every habitable room. Obviously don’t leave in full view on the windowsill or in the lock.

9. If your family needs to access the house at different times rather than have several duplicate main door keys install a key safe box by the door. It’s far safer than leaving a key “under the mat” or risking being locked out should a key go missing.

10. Of course even with the best planning and good intentions tragedies will still happen so make a Will to save your family the hassle and expense of a protracted Probate. If you have young ones discuss and agree who you would want to be their future Guardians if the worst happens and include in the Will or separate legal statement.

If you have any further suggestions on actions to make home life worry free let us know.

Winter safety, be prepared for another harsh winter

A week ago we were basking in wall to wall sunshine and temperatures of 30 degrees centigrade but now forecasters are warning that we should expect freezing temperatures and snow within weeks. The first snow falls have already arrived in Scotland with temperatures an astonishing 21C below last weekend’s highs.

La Niña is a natural phenomenon characterize by an unusual drop in sea temperatures off the western seaboard of Central America and is widely attributed as contributing, if not  causing, last year’s freakish weather witnessed across the World including devastating floods in Australia and our freezing winter.  Well be warned, La Niña is back again this year so our government machine, transport authorities, rail and airport companies are all making frantic provision to avoid a repeat of the national gridlock and economic paralysis that we all endured last year.

We also want to ensure our customers are prepared by taking action now to stock up on essential winter beating products. Don’t wait until the snow is on the ground as the combination of high demand and disruption to transport links makes availability and our usual prompt delivery less of a certainty.

Here’s a checklist of must have winter safety products to keep you moving and prevent accidents to staff and family alike

• Grit and Salt Bins for businesses particularly those with car parks and walkways
• Quality white sludge free De-Icing Salt in any quantity from 15kg to 28 x 25kg pallets
• Salt and Grit Spreaders for domestic and commercial users
• Snow scoops for clearing drives and paths
• Snow shovels for digging out cars and snow clearance on smaller areas
• In car snow shovel for emergencies
• Promelt de-icer for super fast long lasting deicing on steps, entrances and walkways.

All these products are in stock now so don’t be caught napping this winter.

Podcast on how to get the best fire extinguisher for your company.

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Ensuring your business and staff are protected from the risk of fire is of paramount importance. However, many people don’t realise that they are legally obliged to ensure the fire extinguishers they provide are set up correctly.

In this interview, fire safety expert David Murfitt explains what to look out for.

Can you explain how to pick the correct fire extinguisher for your business?

The most important thing is….that it’s suitable for the risk that you have in your environment. You may well be sat in a small office environment where you’ve got electrical equipment, reality is that in the event of a fire you’re quite possibly going to pick up a water fire extinguisher  because that’s actually the general sort of extinguisher to be required in a premises. A lot of people would see that’s there only requirement but if there are electrics involved you’re going to need a fire extinguisher to cover that electrical risk. Generally in an office environment it’s also useful to have a fire extinguisher which is less likely to cause a conduction of electricity in its use so a fire extinguisher with an atomized spray is better than a standard water fire extinguisher.

If you’ve got chemicals or high levels of electrics then of course the type of extinguisher changes accordingly.

Do the fire extinguishers have to be vigorously tested?

There’s a British Standard Code of Practice for the provision of fire equipment, what you put, where you put it and how you put it and based on the size of the risk, the size of the fire extinguisher or its rating will differ. Through our own experience we are going out to sites where people have purchased their equipment but they suddenly find out the need for this equipment to be commissioned i.e. put into service, but when we arrive to do that they’ve actually purchased the wrong equipment for the risk which they have within their own environment.

Fire extinguishers need to be commissioned upon receipt?

They do. If you’re not experienced in fire equipment, what it should look like, what it should sound like, the functionality of it, it can actually be difficult to realise that in fact in the event that you need it, it won’t work.

What should businesses looking to buy a fire extinguisher do?

The most important thing to do is to make sure the risk you need to cover is covered with the right type of fire extinguisher.  Once it’s on your site it’s got to be commissioned by a competent person. British Standard 5306 part 3 does state that a competent person is somebody who’s undergone industry training, has access to industry training and is able to competently put that piece of equipment into service.

People buy a piece of equipment, the intention ‘s are absolutely right but unfortunately cometh the event that you do need to use it – and we don’t buy fire equipment so we can use it, it’s purchased in case you need to use it but if anything goes wrong and you do end up with a fire – if that piece of equipment malfunctions or is the wrong piece of equipment for the type of fire you’ve got, so let’s take a really bad scenario where you’ve got a flammable liquid fire and you’ve got a water fire extinguisher you’ve got quite a serious problem because you’re going to make the actual fire worse and potentially put your people at a greater risk.

Do people need a fire extinguisher in every room or should they be employing someone’s services who know all about fire safety?

The first thing to look for is third party accreditations and that’s an ISO system which is backed by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service.  That will ensure that anyone coming out to discuss your fire protection needs with you is suitably qualified to do so.  Fire extinguishers should be placed on escape routes generally unless you have specific risks and of course the most important thing is to encourage people away from the incident and to a point where they can raise the alarm. So generally where you have a fire alarm call point, so an activation device where you press the glass to break it and sound the alarm should be very, very close at hand. Training’s a big part of providing fire safety so you raise the alarm before you even think about using a fire extinguisher. Having raised the alarm you decide that it’s safe to do so because you’ve been trained, the fire is still in its very early and small stages you can tackle the fire because the fire equipment you’ve got is the right one for that particular area. The nice thing to know is that if you don’t put the fire out there’s a big red engine with blue lights on the roof of it on its way to you and hopefully they’ll arrive to congratulate you on having put the fire out. If you haven’t put it out they can take it on from there and your risks are reduced.

Do fire extinguishers need regular maintenance?

Yes, the British Standard Code of Practice requires that fire extinguishers are inspected annually and there are tests which are carried out once every five years. For instance, with a water fire extinguisher it needs to be discharged and inspected inside. The commissioning is really, really important because it makes sure the equipment is the right thing in the right place to cover the risks associated and that it will work. It’s almost a pre-service. The annual inspection thereafter will continue to maintain standards and make sure that equipment is always available and ready for use. So maintenance is critical. There should be a really big emphasis on organisations who are looking to protect themselves from fire to make sure that whatever service they use, whoever the company may be, make sure they have third party certification, check their scope of registration covers the provision of fire fighting equipment because through doing that you have got some greater reassurances that you are being given the right cover.

Fire and Safety Centre says:

We whole heartedly endorse the advice given by David Murfitt with regard to buying the best fire extinguisher for the risk being protected.

Businesses employing over 5 people have an obligation under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety Order) 2005 to carry out a fire risk assessment. The risk assessment should be carried out by a “responsible person”.

Once it has been established what type of fire equipment including fire extinguishers are required you can order the products online from Fire and Safety Centre and to comply with the British Standard Code of practice buy the commissioning at the same time.