Australia's Science Forum

Does any one know, how often they should be tested???????

The ones in the staff room, where last tested in 2007.

Portable fire extinguishers are by law required to be inspected by a qualified tester every 6 months.

EDIT: NSW Requirements Information <- Everything you need to know to cringe at what is and isn't correct in your school.

In our govt school, our fire extinguishers are tested every 12 months (not withstanding the info above) and have been done so, for the last 20 years I have been here. Every six months seems a bit of an overkill. Our GA, who has been here for about 15 years, is the local fire captain as well. So if the six months was needed, I imagine he would make sure it was enforced.

Australian Standard AS1851-2012, requires all extinguishers to be checked & tagged every six months. Depending on the type of extinguisher, they also need an overhaul every one to five years.

Ours are done six monthly.

ours are done every six months too

every 6 mths here as well. You also need to make sure there is a system in place to inform the fire department testing team if an extinguisher has been used. We used one in science in second term and when they were checked over term break, they didn't know it had been used. The incident had goon through the correct channels at school but it seems it was no ones job to inform that a replacement may have been needed.

Some really interesting answers and questions. Thank you so much everyone.

Ours are also done every 6 months.

My other half is the FEM (fire equipment maintenance) officer for the local CFA and he has to check the fire extinguishers in shops etc every six months. He is very busy as he has another job because he is a volunteer for the CFA. It is still very serious though, he gets a lot of training to be FEM officer

our are done every 6 months