Fire Alarm Design Services for UK Contractors
BS 5839-1 and BS 5839-6 fire alarm design delivered remotely for UK installers, M&E contractors and consultants. You get device layouts, cause-and-effect matrices, battery and cable calculations, and Revit or CAD drawings ready for tender or installation.
Design-Only Fire Alarm Support for UK Installers
Most firms ranking for fire alarm design in the UK are installers. ASDV is not. We are a design-only engineering office that installers, M&E contractors and building-services consultants use when they need fire alarm design capacity without hiring. You keep the client, the installation and the commissioning. We produce the design documentation, which you or your BAFE SP203-1 designer can review and sign off.
That separation suits UK projects. Under BS 5839-1, design, installation, commissioning and verification are distinct responsibilities, and each needs its own certificate. We take the design responsibility, or support the person who holds it, and your team carries the rest.
What Our Fire Alarm Design Package Includes
| Deliverable | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Category confirmation | L1–L5, M, P1/P2 (BS 5839-1) or Grade/Category for dwellings (BS 5839-6), aligned to the fire strategy and fire risk assessment |
| Device layout drawings | Detector, call point, sounder, VAD and interface positions, with spacing checked against BS 5839-1 clause 22 coverage limits |
| Zone and loop plans | Detection zones (≤2,000 m², single storey rules), loop allocation and isolator positions |
| Cause-and-effect matrix | Alarm, evacuation and phased-evacuation logic, plus interfaces to AOVs, lifts, door holders, sprinklers and HVAC shutdown (BS 7273) |
| Calculations | Standby battery (24 h/72 h + alarm load), loop load and voltage drop, sounder dB(A) and VAD coverage (EN 54-23) |
| Cable specification | Standard vs enhanced fire-resisting cable selection per BS 5839-1 clause 26 |
| Design certificate support | Variation register and design notes to support the BS 5839-1 G1 design certificate |
| Revit / AutoCAD model | Native files on your title block, coordinated with other building services |
BS 5839-1 vs BS 5839-6: Which Applies?
BS 5839-1 covers non-domestic premises: offices, retail, healthcare, education and industrial. BS 5839-6 covers domestic premises, including houses, flats and HMOs. Mixed-use and purpose-built blocks of flats often need both: Part 6 inside dwellings and Part 1 in common areas, plant rooms and commercial ground floors. We confirm the split at the start, because a wrong standard choice is one of the most common causes of building-control rejections.
How It Works
Send the inputs
Architectural plans (DWG/RVT/PDF), the fire strategy or fire risk assessment, and any manufacturer preference.
Fixed-fee proposal
A scope and fee within 48 hours, priced per project, not by the hour.
First issue
Layouts, zone plans and cause-and-effect for your review, typically in 5–10 working days depending on size.
Comments and final issue
Revisions closed out, calculations and a variation register issued, and native files handed over.
Working across time zones: our New Delhi office is 4½–5½ hours ahead of the UK. Comments you send at the end of a UK working day are usually turned round by the next UK morning.
Sectors We Design For
Offices and commercial fit-outs, residential blocks and student accommodation, healthcare (HTM 05-03 aware), education, retail, hotels, warehouses and logistics, and data centres. Fire alarm design is often combined with our ELV design and security design services, so the interfaces to access control and PA/VA are coordinated in a single package.
Fire Alarm Design FAQs
The organisation that takes design responsibility signs it. Many UK installers hold that responsibility under BAFE SP203-1 and use ASDV as their design resource. Your competent designer reviews our package and signs. We provide the calculations, drawings and variation register the certificate depends on.
The fee depends on floor area, the number of storeys, the system category and how complex the cause-and-effect is. We quote a fixed fee per project once we've seen the drawings. Because our engineering team is based in India, fees are typically well below UK in-house rates for the same deliverables.
Yes. We can design generically to BS 5839-1 for tender, or to a named system (for example Advanced, Kentec, Gent, Hochiki or Apollo) so loop loading and device addressing match the equipment you'll install.
Yes. We design to BS 5839-6, Grades A, C, D1 and D2 and Categories LD1–LD3, including the common-area Part 1 system where a building needs both.