As a business owner, you know you have a responsibility to keep both your employees and your customers safe while on your property. That’s why it’s important to install such features as fire curtains and security doors in the workplace. Taking these basic steps is key to limiting certain risks you need to be aware of.
A fire curtain is a particularly important feature to use at a business. To better understand why you should think about installing these curtains in strategic sections of your property, consider the following essential points.
How a Fire Shutter or Fire Curtain Keeps People Safe
Fires typically don’t engulf entire properties right away. They start in one section of a building, but due to a variety of factors, they may be able to travel to other sections.
You obviously want to halt the progress of a fire when it starts. If you can keep it in one space, and relocate everyone else to another section of the office, you’ll significantly reduce the chances of anyone being harmed.
You’ll also reduce the odds of the fire causing such major property damage that your business suffers. A fire that destroys major sections of the property, valuable documents, or important equipment can put your business in a situation that’s difficult to recover from.
These are all reasons a fire curtain is a smart business investment. As the name implies, it’s designed to resist fire more effectively than other materials. Perhaps more importantly, fire curtains are installed at strategic locations in buildings. They deploy from the ceiling when fires start. This can serve a range of purposes.
First, of course, the curtain may restrict the fire’s growth, keeping it in one location. The curtain can also block off sections of the property, helping people get to safety. Additionally, curtains can indirectly help people navigate to safe areas during the confusion and panic that often naturally develops when a fire strikes a business.
For instance, it’s not uncommon for fire curtains to essentially form paths that lead people to stairways or exits while keeping them away from the fire itself.
You can probably already think of many reasons this is a valuable feature to have at your business. Again, you need to keep both customers and employees safe to as much of a degree as possible in the workplace. No business owner wants someone being injured or dying on their property.
While of course the real victim is the individual who was hurt or killed, your business would also suffer as a result of such an incident. You’d almost certainly be responsible for paying the injured person’s medical bills.
On top of that, this type of incident could hurt your business’ reputation. Customers may be less likely to frequent it in the future if they know you don’t take necessary steps to keep people safe.
You also need to consider legal regulations. Depending on the nature of the incident, your business could be put in legal jeopardy if it’s determined that you failed to responsibly protect your employees and customers from potential hazards on the property.
This creates a ripple effect. When your company struggles with high bills and/or legal troubles, you can’t operate successfully. As a result, you might lose revenue, and be forced to save costs by reducing your workforce. This is another way in which your employees would struggle because you didn’t prioritise fire safety.
True, a fire curtain is the type of feature you hope you never get the opportunity to use. Your main goal is to reduce the odds of a fire occurring altogether. It’s important that you coordinate with all supervisors and other important people at the company to develop and implement a thorough fire safety plan.
You also need to ensure all your employees know what they can do to reduce the odds of a fire occurring, and to stay safe if a fire ever does strike your property. This should involve confirming they understand what fire curtains are, how they function, and where they’re located throughout the property. They also need to know about the presence and function of any security doors or other safety features in the building.
Providing your workers with this information doesn’t just help them be prepared if a fire ever occurs. It can also boost overall employee morale. Quite simply, people are happier at work when the environment in which they work feels safe. If your employees learn about all the steps you’ve taken to keep them safe from fires, they’ll be more relaxed on the property. This can lead to greater employee satisfaction and productivity.
Qualities of a Reliable Fire Rated Roller Shutter or Curtain
Installing fire curtains or shutters throughout key areas of your property is smart. That said, they won’t deliver any value if they don’t function properly. That’s why you also need to make sure you understand what qualities are worth seeking out in a fire curtain or shutter.
First, fire curtains typically deploy from hidden spaces along the ceiling when they are needed. Thus, you need to confirm your fire curtains deploy reliably. Make sure you get them from a reputable supplier whose fire curtains have been demonstrated (whether through testing, real-life scenarios, or both) work as they should, when they should.
You also may want to conduct some additional research to learn about the materials fire curtains are made of. It’s obviously necessary that they be made from materials that are chosen specifically because they resist fire.
While it’s unlikely that you would find an item advertised as a fire curtain when it is in fact made with the wrong material to serve its purpose, you should still make sure any fire curtain you choose was manufactured properly.
It’s also necessary to consider the size of the various fire curtains you’re planning to install throughout your property. Although they can be helpful in many different types of spaces within a building, fire curtains are often particularly helpful in relatively large and open spaces, where getting to safety might otherwise be difficult.
If a fire were to occur at your business, people would naturally panic. A lot of panicking people in one large space can make it challenging for people to know where they should go to get away from the fire. Large fire curtains help to protect them, and can help them more easily navigate the space.
The main point is, you have to consider where you plan on installing fire curtains, and what size they will need to be to serve their purpose. An expert can help in this capacity if you’re not sure how to make such plans.
Luckily, this highlights one of the main benefits of a quality fire curtain: it can typically be designed and installed to meet your specific needs. After all, every property is different. The right size and location for a fire curtain at one business may not be right for your business.
Additionally, the process of installing fire curtains tends to be relatively quick. Once more, installing them at your property is a very easy and effective way to boost everyone’s safety at a fairly low cost.
On that topic, you’ll also likely compare fire curtain prices when researching your options. This is a logical step to take. The more you understand average fire curtain prices, the more you’ll understand what you should reasonably expect to pay for one. Just keep in mind that a fire curtain plays a very important role on your property.
Depending on the circumstances, it could even save lives one day. Thus, while you don’t want to spend more money than you can afford, you don’t want to settle for a low-quality fire curtain simply to reduce your budget. The main purpose of researching fire curtain prices is to simply help you more effectively set a budget in the first place.
As you and others at your business plan where to install fire curtains, you’ll also need to account for how much it cost to install them. Keeping this factor in mind from the start helps you develop a plan more efficiently.
Once you’re ready to install your fire curtains, get in touch with South Wales TV Aerials. Along with providing TV wall mounting and aerial installation services, we also have the expertise necessary to ensure your fire curtains are installed properly. Contact us online to learn more.