I.S. 291:2015+A1:2022
The extinguisher cycle, and the year it lands.
There is no five year service in Ireland. There is an annual, a three yearly discharge test spread across your stock, and a ten year replacement that arrives all at once if nothing was staggered.
Where the five year service comes from.
The five year extended service belongs to BS 5306, the British standard. It is not in I.S. 291 and never has been. The two regimes sit side by side across a land border, with a lot of shared equipment and shared software between them, so the five year interval turns up in Ireland reasonably often. It is worth knowing which of the two your paperwork is written against.
What the Irish standard actually sets is an annual maintenance, a discharge test every three years, and a ten year end point. The middle one is the interesting one, because the standard builds the staggering in for you.
The intervals
What happens, and when.
Visual inspection
By your own responsible person, at intervals no greater than monthly. In place, visible, unobstructed, pin and tamper seal intact, gauge in the green, no visible damage. Recorded in the fire register. This one costs nothing and is the first thing a fire officer will ask whether you do.
Maintenance
By a competent person at intervals not exceeding twelve months plus or minus one. Every type, with no exceptions: water, foam, wet chemical, dry powder and CO2. Each unit examined, weighed where that applies, and its label and register entry updated. Anything added to the stock later gets pulled onto the same date as the rest, so the building keeps one maintenance anniversary rather than several.
Discharge test
Every extinguisher is discharge tested every three years, or four years from manufacture if that comes first, and every three years after that. All types. The same clause requires a third of the stock to be done each year, so the whole building is covered by the end of year three. The staggering is in the standard itself, not a scheduling preference.
Pressure test or replacement
Two different rules that share a date. A CO2 cylinder at ten years old must be hydraulically pressure tested or the unit replaced, and the test is not something done in the field. Water, foam, wet chemical and dry powder units are a harder line: ten years or more from the date of manufacture and they no longer comply, so they are replaced. That is permanent, not an exchange.
The year it lands
Why the bill jumps, and when it does not.
The annual is steady, and the discharge test is smoothed by the standard itself, a third at a time. Neither of those is what catches buildings out.
The ten year replacement is. Fit out a building in one go, or take one over from a contractor who replaced everything at once, and every unit in it shares a date of manufacture. They reach ten years together, and unlike the discharge test there is no rolling third to soften it. That is the year the invoice looks nothing like the year before.
It also lands badly where the rolling third has not been running. Three years of discharge tests then arrive in one visit, on top of whatever else is due.
How we do it
Service exchange, not refill on site.
The discharge test requires an extinguisher to be emptied, refilled and re-pressurised. We do not do that on your wall. We bring a new unit and exchange it, a third of the stock each year, and the one that comes off goes back to the workshop.
The building is never short of cover. The replacement goes on the bracket as the old one comes off. No empty points, no loan units to reconcile, nothing for an inspector to find on the wrong day.
The cost spreads across the cycle. A third a year is a third of the bill a year, which is what the standard intends and what a building on a neglected estate has never had.
Every exchange is logged against the individual extinguisher. Not against the building, against the unit, with the year it went on the wall. You can open the register and see exactly where each one is in its cycle, which is the only way to know what next year costs.
At the ten year point the rules diverge, and we will tell you which one applies. A CO2 unit is replaced rather than sent for pressure testing. A powder or foam unit is replaced permanently, because past ten years from manufacture it no longer complies no matter what condition it looks to be in.
Worth knowing
Foam extinguishers are changing.
Under current EPA guidance on fire fighting foams containing PFAS, we are not exchanging AFFF foam extinguishers like for like. At the annual visit they are replaced with water units with an additive instead.
If you have foam units on the wall, expect them to be replaced with something different rather than refilled, and expect the register to show that. It is a question facilities managers are starting to ask, and it is better answered before it is asked.
What good looks like
What you should get every year.
A certificate of inspection and maintenance. Annex B, B.5 of the standard, confirming the extinguishers have been maintained to I.S. 291:2015+A1:2022. Plus a label on each unit recording the date of maintenance, the discharge test and, for CO2, the pressure test.
Labels that agree with the paperwork. If the label on the wall and the entry in the register say different things, one of them is wrong, and it matters which.
Failures listed in writing. Anything condemned appears on the report with a price before it is replaced, so the decision stays yours and the register shows what changed and when.
A forward view. You should be able to ask what falls due next year and the year after, and get the answer from the register. Without one the ten year replacement arrives unannounced.
Questions
Common questions.
We have been working to a five year interval. Where does that come from?
From BS 5306, the British standard. I.S. 291 has no five year interval: it sets a discharge test every three years, with a third of the stock done each year. If your schedule has been built on a five year interval, it is worth checking the register for when the discharge tests were last done.
Why was this year's bill so much higher?
Usually the ten year point. The annual is steady and the discharge test is spread a third at a time, but the ten year replacement is not spread by anything. If the building was kitted out in one go, every unit reaches it in the same year.
Can the cost be spread out?
The three yearly discharge test already is, by the standard, and service exchange is how we deliver that without leaving gaps on the wall. The ten year replacement can be planned for but not avoided, which is exactly why the forward view matters. Knowing two years out is the difference between a budget line and a shock.
Is the building left without cover while units are serviced?
No. The replacement arrives with the technician and goes on the bracket as the old one comes off. Nothing sits empty and there are no loan units to keep track of.
Nobody knows when ours were last done. What now?
The labels usually tell us, and the date of manufacture on each unit tells us the rest. A survey turns the estate into a dated schedule of what falls due when, which is the thing you cannot plan without. Free of charge, whether or not you use us afterwards.
Does maintenance check we have the right extinguishers?
Maintenance checks the units in front of it. Whether the right type stands beside the right risk is a survey question, and it is where the genuinely dangerous mistakes live, like a water extinguisher beside a distribution board.
Want to know what falls due next?
We will read the labels and dates of manufacture across your building and give you a dated schedule of what is coming, so the cycle can be planned rather than absorbed. Free, and yours either way.