What a fire damper record has to prove
A damper test that nobody can find afterwards did not happen, as far as an auditor is concerned. The record is the deliverable. At a minimum it has to tie each damper to a place, a date, a person and a result, and it has to survive being read by somebody who was not there.
- Which damper, exactly. A reference, a location a stranger could find, and ideally a point on the drawing rather than a line of text like "Level 2 corridor, near lift".
- What it is. Type - curtain, single blade, multi-blade, intumescent - the duct size it sits in, and the fire rating of the wall or floor it is protecting.
- How you got to it. The access route and hatch, because next year somebody else has to repeat the trip, and the absence of an access hatch is itself a finding worth recording.
- The drop test result. Whether the blade released and fully closed, whether it reset, and what was found - obstruction, corrosion, missing fusible link, damaged seal.
- Photographs. Before and after, showing the damper in its closed position, not a stock image of a hatch.
- Who and when. The engineer's name and the date, recorded at the damper rather than typed up on Friday afternoon.
Anything less and the register becomes a list of assertions. That matters because the duty is continuing: the responsible person has to be able to show not just that a test happened, but what was found and what was done about it.
The duty, stated plainly
The legal requirement in England and Wales sits in the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Article 17 requires that fire safety equipment - which includes fire dampers - is kept in efficient working order and good repair, by a competent person. The Order does not name an interval.
The interval comes from standards and industry guidance rather than from the Order itself. BS 9999 addresses testing of fire dampers by a competent person, and the detailed practice guidance used across the ductwork trade is BESA DW/145, substantially revised in November 2024. In ordinary practice that means a drop test on completion of installation and at least annually thereafter, with some higher-risk or dust-laden systems tested more often. Damper products and their fire test evidence sit under BS EN 15650, BS EN 1366-2 and BS EN 13501-3.
We are a software company, not your competent person. Confirm your own interval against the current standards and your fire risk assessment - but whatever interval applies, the record of it is the thing that has to exist, and that is the part we are good at.
The damper you cannot reach
This is the part of damper testing nobody writes about, and it is the part that causes the arguments. On any real building a proportion of dampers cannot be tested on the day: there is no access hatch, the hatch is behind a plasterboard ceiling that was closed over, the room is a tenanted flat nobody answered, the duct is above live equipment that cannot be shut down.
The wrong answers are to leave the damper off the register entirely, or to mark it tested because it probably would have passed. Both turn a defensible piece of work into a liability. The right answer is that a damper you could not reach is still a damper, and its record should say so, with the reason, the date somebody tried, and a photograph of the obstruction.
In Assaya a no-access damper is recorded in the same way as a tested one - pinned in its location, with its access route described and the attempt on the record. It stays visible on the register as an open item rather than vanishing. That gives the responsible person the one thing they actually need: an honest count of what was tested, what failed, and what still cannot be reached, so somebody can decide what to do about the third category.
What Assaya captures for a damper
Dampers are one of the trades with their own capture fields rather than a general-purpose form. On a damper record the app asks for the damper type, the access route, the duct size, the drop test result and whether the damper reset, alongside the fields every Assaya record carries - the pin on the current drawing revision, the element and its fire rating, photographs, the operative, and the date.
Three things about how it stores that are worth saying:
- It works with no signal. Dampers live in plant rooms, risers and ceiling voids. The whole record, photographs included, captures on the device and syncs when the phone finds a connection again.
- The history is tamper-evident. Every change to a record is kept and hash-chained, so a reviewer can see what was amended and when. A record that can be quietly rewritten afterwards is not evidence.
- Photographs carry their own provenance. Each evidence photo taken in the app has its reference, location and capture time burned into the image, so the information survives the photo being exported, printed or pasted into somebody else's report.
When the year is up, the register is already the handover document. There is no end-of-contract week spent rebuilding it from a camera roll.
Dampers are rarely the only trade on the job
Most firms testing dampers are also sealing penetrations, checking fire doors, or fitting cavity barriers on the same buildings. Assaya covers twelve fire protection trades and each one is a switch in your console - on or off per company, so a damper-only contractor sees a damper-only app.
Fire stopping, fire doors, fire dampers, intumescent coating and fire board encasement each have their own capture fields. Cavity barriers, edge of slab, fire windows and glazing, fire and smoke curtains, fire shutters, fire-rated ceilings and extinguishers are recorded on the common register with their own work types. Everything lands in one register against one drawing, which is usually the real reason people move off a damper-only tool.
What it costs
The whole price list is published, because you should not have to sit through a demo to find out what software costs. There is no per-damper, per-pin or per-drawing charge, which matters on this trade in particular - a damper register is thousands of records and a per-record price quietly taxes the biggest jobs. Client observers are free. Solo mode is free: no account, records held on your own device.
See fire-stopping records captured on site, pinned to the drawing and locked to a tamper-evident history - with the whole price list published and no demo to sit through first.
How often do fire dampers have to be tested in the UK?
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires fire safety equipment to be kept in efficient working order, but sets no interval. The interval comes from BS 9999 and from BESA DW/145, the ductwork industry's practice guidance, revised in November 2024. In ordinary practice that means a drop test on completion of installation and at least annually thereafter, with more frequent testing where the risk assessment or the system type calls for it. Confirm your own interval with a competent person.
What is a fire damper drop test?
Releasing the damper's fusible link or thermal release so the blade drops, and confirming that it travels fully closed and seals, then resetting it. The record should say whether it closed fully, whether it reset, and what was found - obstruction, corrosion, a missing link, a damaged seal.
What do I do about a fire damper nobody can access?
Record it rather than omit it. A damper that could not be reached should stay on the register as an open item, with the reason, the date of the attempt and a photograph of the obstruction. That gives the responsible person an honest count of tested, failed and unreachable, and lets somebody decide whether to install an access hatch. Marking it tested, or leaving it off the register, are both worse than saying so.
Does fire damper software need to work offline?
Yes. Dampers sit in plant rooms, risers and ceiling voids, which is exactly where a phone has no signal. If the app cannot capture the full record including photographs on the device and sync later, engineers fall back to notes and a camera roll, and the register quality collapses. Test any tool in airplane mode before buying it.
Can I keep dampers and fire stopping in the same register?
In Assaya, yes - twelve fire protection trades run against the same drawings and the same register, and each trade is a switch you turn on or off per company. Dampers, fire stopping, fire doors, intumescent coating and board encasement each have their own capture fields.
What does fire damper inspection software cost?
Assaya publishes its full price list at assaya.co.uk/pricing.html with no demo call first, and charges no per-damper, per-pin or per-drawing fees. Client observers are free, and solo mode is free with records held on your own device.
This page is general information about record-keeping for fire damper inspection, not legal or compliance advice. Testing intervals and methods should be confirmed with a competent person against the current standards.