For some time now, Boele Fire Protection has been carrying out SCIOS inspections for various organisations across the country. A SCIOS inspection within the fire safety market is a mandatory inspection that applies to combustion plants, such as diesel pumps for sprinkler systems. These must be inspected periodically because of the Environmental Management Act. Roy van Teeffelen, service team leader at Boele Fire Protection, sees a high demand for these inspections. ''We are getting more and more requests to carry out SCIOS inspections. So it really is a growing market for us.
The increasing demand from the market for SCIOS inspections means that customers are starting to see the importance of this. Indeed, it appears that the environmental authorities are increasingly checking whether SCIOS certificates have been issued for the installation and are strictly enforcing this. Yet Roy sees that there is still a lot of ignorance about these inspections, especially when it comes to the various inspection requirements. ''We still regularly see that many deviations do come up during an inspection. This is mainly because there is often something wrong with the set-up requirements of the installation. This does not directly concern the combustion plant itself, but mainly the environment in which it is located. Think about the floors (coated or not), the height of the entrance to the pump rooms, or the air supply and exhaust (flue gas drains). For example, the lack of a sill at the entrance to the pump room can be an anomaly since if a leak occurs, the liquid can then leave the pump room. This in fact increases the risk of environmental damage. Parts such as the routing of the flue gas duct, the outlet or adjacent combustible parts also involve many deviations during the SCIOS inspection.
Many rejects are usually quite preventable, according to Roy. In fact, many such cases should already come to attention during the First Special Inspection (EBI). ''Once an installation has been commissioned, a first SCIOS inspection, called the EBI, must officially take place within 6 weeks. In that case, in the initial phase when the pump is placed, you can still indicate that the setup is not in accordance with the guidelines. However, we often see that many installations have never had this EBI. For many people, the deviations then come as a surprise, because they have never been aware that something is not right,'' Roy said. So it turns out that many installation owners skip this important initial inspection and only encounter SCIOS inspection during the later Periodic Inspection (PI). This periodic inspection normally follows the EBI once every 2 or 4 years, depending on the thermal input.
Roy says that since the legal requirement since 2016, environmental authorities are increasingly checking whether SCIOS certificates have been issued for the installation. This is then also strictly enforced. This partly explains the growing demand for SCIOS inspections at Boele Fire Protection. ''Currently we still have about 50 assignments scheduled. But we have about 400 diesel sets in our customer base and they get their turn every 2 years. In addition, we not only provide inspection, but we also perform repair work. For example, at a customer in Utrecht we are currently laying almost 80 meters of pipeline to ensure that the exhaust gases come out at the right place''.
Boele Fire Protection looks confidently to the future, in which the growing demand SCIOS inspections will play an increasingly important role. The increasing awareness around safety and regulations means that installation owners need specialist knowledge and reliable advice more than ever. Wondering if your diesel driven sprinkler pump meets the standards of inspections? Or would you like to know more about the importance or content of these inspections? Feel free to contact Roy or one of our other specialists.
