Thursday, June 12, 2008

FIRE ALARMS - food for thought...

submitted by:
Derek De Souza

Warga CAHC, this makes good information. Worth spending some time to look into this issue. Comments please.

It is with great sadness that I inform you all of concerns on safety within the PNK building, looks like all efforts to emphasis on safety has fallen on deaf years, yet again. Let me bring to your attention some outstanding issues currently affecting our condo, pertaining to the fire alarm system.

Firstly, it is with deep regret that the authorities at Bomba do not carry out regular routine checks. I address this issue, because I have in the past five years made no less than 5 complaints to Bomba with regards to the state of affairs of our fire alarm system. I always question the need for such systems to be installed and the regulation which makes it a requirement of the building by-law acts. Why should a fire alarm be installed in the first place??? The answer is simple, it is used as an early warning to detect potential fire hazards that may cause loss of life, property and what not!!! Why do people treat safety lightly??? Good question, the answer is simple....everybody believes or tends to ignore the possibility of such a fire ever being able to take place in their premises. Well we all hope it never happens, anyway right!

Please note that the current situation of our fire alarm system is in bad condition. We have a sophisticated addressable fire alarm system, which is supposedly much better than conventional or semi-addressable systems. The sad thing is this, the system tends to breakdown frequently and all in the name of ignorance towards the suggestions I have offered in the past, which is to reinstall all the addressable transponders accordingly and which shall ensure that such potential failures are lessened or removed completely. Back to the situation of our fire alarm system, please note that the main fire alarm panel in the guardpost is totally shutdown and the one in block 6, connecting blocks 4,5 and 6 has a problem with its network card. What this means is that there is no network communications of the current status of the fire system. In the event a call point is triggered to alert fire, this information will not be communicated back to the main control panel to trigger the relevant bells. The other most glaring situation is the conventional fire alarm panels installed at the Pencawang Elektrik room where our electrical transformers are installed (PE 3 and PE 4), which are totally dead or non-functional. Even the gas discharge panel for the Halon Gas is also broken. I do hope that in the interest of safety, God protects us in the interim period that the system is non-functional. The manager of our condominium seems to feel that this outstanding issue is either irrelevant to him or our safety. We should communicate such poor building managers in our forums so that such management companies do not get any other buildings maintenance contracts in future. Call me if you want to know which company.

I sincerely hope that something is done by Bomba soon. In my list of email distribution, I have included the email address of Tuan Edwin Galan Teruki of Bomba whom is the person in charge of enforcement. I do hope tuan, if you see this email, you will help send some enforcement officers to our condominium i.e. Puncak Nusa Kelana in Jalan PJU 1A/48, Petaling Jaya to investigate and if possible fine the building manager.

With that, I end my message with a prayer to God, that he protects us all in the interim period that our fire system is down, due to the excellent management services provided by a team of morons. "Dear God, please protect us from fires and ensure the safety of all our tenants and residents. Please make Bomba realise their responsibility towards the people and let them send someone to check on our problem. Most importantly, God, please send a message through the thick skulls of the morons that manage our building on the importance of safety and early detection of potential fires. We ask all this in the name of God! Thank you."

No comments: