Smartec has continued to maintain the systems ever since, giving the school one contractor responsible for planned maintenance, defect resolution and remedial works across the site.
Today, 1,324 individually recorded assets across ten disciplines are managed under a single maintenance contract, with service records held in the Smartec Client Portal.
Who is the client?
The Fulham Boys School is a secondary school at 532 Fulham Road, London SW6 5BH.
Following the original installation in 2022, Smartec retained responsibility for ongoing maintenance. The contract covers planned maintenance, defect resolution and quotations for remedial works across the school’s fire, life safety and security systems.
For a busy school environment, continuity matters. Maintenance has to work around term dates, safeguarding requirements, staff and pupil access, and the practical demands of keeping the site operational.
What does Smartec maintain?
The maintenance contract covers ten disciplines:
- Fire detection, alarms and components
- Automatic Opening Vents (AOV)
- Disabled refuge and disabled WC alarms
- Fire extinguishers
- Emergency and exit lighting
- Fire dampers
- Door holders
- Intruder alarm systems
- Access control
- Alarm monitoring
Each discipline has its own requirements and testing regime. Fire detection follows BS 5839-1, emergency lighting follows BS 5266-1, extinguishers follow BS 5306-3, and fire dampers are tested at least annually in line with BS 9999. Disabled refuge communication is covered by BS 5839-9.
Managing those requirements through one maintenance arrangement means the school has a single point of contact rather than coordinating multiple contractors and separate service records.
Why does it matter that the installer still maintains the system?
The people maintaining the system already know why it was designed the way it was.
During the 2022 installation, decisions were made about cause and effect, zoning, cable routes, device addressing and the interfaces between systems. That knowledge did not disappear at handover.
When a new contractor inherits an existing installation, part of the early maintenance process can involve rediscovering how the system was configured, often by working from drawings and documentation produced by somebody else.
At The Fulham Boys School, four years of continuous responsibility removes much of that uncertainty.
If a fault is found, the team maintaining the system has the installation history and context needed to investigate it. There is no question about where responsibility starts and ends: if something is not right, it is Smartec’s responsibility to put it right.
What does 1,324 assets actually mean?
The figure represents more than a headline number.
Every detector, call point, sounder, extinguisher, luminaire, fire damper, door holder and access-control reader is recorded as an individual asset, with its own service history.
When an engineer attends site, the result is recorded against the relevant device rather than simply being added to a high-level summary certificate.
That level of detail is particularly valuable in a school.
A secondary school has changing occupancy patterns, holiday periods, safeguarding arrangements and multiple stakeholders. Its Responsible Person may need to demonstrate that systems have been maintained to governors, insurers, auditors or the local fire and rescue service.
With asset-level records, the evidence is available as a lookup rather than requiring someone to search through paper records or multiple contractor reports.
How are defects and remedial works handled?
Defects identified during planned maintenance are raised on site and quoted separately. The school can then decide what work should proceed and when.
Two examples demonstrate how this process works in practice:
- Pupil WC access control — quote SQ-0924: supplied and installed, completed September 2024.
- Isolation switch: supplied and installed, completed July 2026.
Both originated from requirements identified during site activity rather than from separate procurement exercises.
For a school working around term-time schedules, that can provide a more straightforward route from identifying a problem to resolving it.
Why does using one contractor across ten systems help?
Split contracts can create split records.
If fire detection is maintained by one contractor, extinguishers by another and fire dampers by a third, no single provider necessarily has the complete picture. Gaps can become apparent during an audit, when systems interact, or after an incident.
At The Fulham Boys School, one contractor maintains all ten disciplines.
That gives the school:
- One point of contact
- One maintenance process
- One route for defect reporting
- One contractor responsible for remedial quotations
- One location for the maintenance evidence
It also removes a common problem with interconnected systems: responsibility at the boundary.
Door holders release following a fire alarm signal. AOVs can operate as part of the fire strategy. Access-control arrangements need to respond appropriately during an alarm.
When the systems are installed and maintained by the same team, a problem at the interface between two systems is simply a problem to investigate and resolve, rather than a dispute between contractors over responsibility.
Could the school prove its compliance today?
Ultimately, that is the question behind every maintenance programme.
It is not enough to have systems installed. A school needs evidence that those systems have been inspected, tested, maintained and, where necessary, repaired.
That is why every asset at The Fulham Boys School is recorded in the Smartec Client Portal.
Attendances, test results, defects and certification are associated with individual assets and held in Digital Logbooks, providing 24/7 access to the maintenance record. Photo-Verified Defect Reporting can also be attached directly to the relevant record, providing visual evidence alongside the written defect description.
The result is a continuous record from installation through ongoing maintenance.
Four years of continuity. One maintenance contract. 1,324 assets.
The Fulham Boys School demonstrates the value of maintaining the systems you originally installed.
Smartec’s role did not end when the 2022 installation was completed. By continuing to maintain the site, the installation knowledge, asset history and service responsibility have remained connected.
For the school, that means ten disciplines, 1,324 individually recorded assets and one contractor responsible for keeping the evidence up to date.
Installed in 2022. Still maintained today.