Fire damper testing in Mill Hill, Greater London

What staff can safely do

Away from the kitchen, the in-house job is mainly checking: keeping grilles clear, noting unusual noise or smells and logging filter changes. The inside of ducts and units needs a specialist.

Day-to-day cleaning is something your team can do: wiping down canopy surfaces, cleaning filters and keeping a simple log. Inside the ducts, risers and fan is specialist work, and that’s where we come in.

What fire damper testing looks like in Mill Hill

The FSA’s food hygiene register lists about 29 schools, colleges and universities and about 18 caring premises (care homes, nurseries and hospitals) with registered kitchens or food service within 1.5 miles or so of the middle of Mill Hill. Buildings like these often have ducted ventilation, and wherever a duct crosses a fire-resisting wall or floor there should be a damper, tested at least once a year. Mill Hill’s nearest hospital, Edgware Community Hospital, is about 2 miles south-west. Smaller healthcare sites, from surgeries to care homes, need the same annual damper test as a hospital. Ceiling voids and risers in London buildings can hold many dampers, and each one has to be reached and recorded.

Site managers at schools such as St Paul's CofE Primary School NW7 typically find the summer break the easiest time for ceiling work like damper testing. If you manage a care home or clinic near Mill Hill, the testing that a hospital like Edgware Community Hospital (about 2 miles south-west) relies on applies to your dampers too.

Mill Hill is about 1 mile north-east of Burnt Oak, in Greater London. Whatever kind of site you run in Mill Hill, fire damper testing is something we can help with. Visits can be booked for evenings, overnight or weekends so trading is not interrupted. Mill Hill is one of 764 places in Greater London we cover for commercial clients. London is in our area too, about 10 miles from Mill Hill.

Postcode districts we cover here for fire damper testing: NW7 and N20. Fire damper testing is available to premises on Daws Lane, Byron Road and High Street and nearby roads. If your site is just outside Mill Hill, we cover The Hale (1 mile west), Burnt Oak (1 mile south-west), Grahame Park (1 mile south), Totteridge (2 miles north-east) and Edgware (2 miles west). We also work in nearby towns such as London (10 miles south-east), City of Westminster (8 miles south-east), Marylebone (8 miles south-east), Kensington (8 miles south), St Pancras (8 miles south-east) and Shoreditch (9 miles south-east).

What’s near Mill Hill

We work in commercial kitchens and buildings around Mill Hill School, Copthall School and Bittacy Hill Park, among other places. Other local landmarks include Francis Skaryna Belarusian Library and Museum (2 miles east) and Rising Sun pub (0.7 miles north-west). The closest station to Mill Hill is Mill Hill Broadway station, roughly 1 mile south-west of the centre. Well-known places in the area include Broadwalk Centre (2 miles west) and Francis Skaryna Belarusian Library and Museum (2 miles east). Open spaces near Mill Hill include The Mill Field and Darland's Lake.

Different parts, different methods

Fusible link fire dampers

Most fire dampers are held open by a fusible link. When the link reaches its set temperature it melts, and the blade drops to close the duct. We release the blade, check it closes fully and reset it.

Smoke dampers

A smoke damper that does not respond to its controls is recorded as a fault, along with what we saw.

For landlords and multi-site operators

Records are where multi-site compliance often slips. Each visit produces a dated report with pictures, ready to show insurers, fire officers or EHOs.

Running several sites is easier with one contractor. We cover South East England and London, so a run of sites can go into one programme and kept to a regular schedule.