Fire Extinguisher Inspection & Service

Extinguishers are the fire protection everyone walks past and nobody thinks about until an inspector flips a tag and finds it two years out of date. The requirements are simple, annual service, periodic internal maintenance, hydrostatic testing on a longer cycle, but they apply to every single unit in the building, and a fire marshal will happily write up all forty of them individually.

Get Extinguishers Serviced

The Three Clocks on Every Extinguisher

Every unit in the building runs three maintenance cycles at once, and the tag has to prove all three:

Annual Inspection: A technician verifies pressure, weight, hose, pin, and placement, then tags the unit. This is the tag the fire marshal checks first.
6-Year Internal Maintenance: Stored-pressure dry chemical units get emptied, examined internally, and rebuilt with new parts on a six-year cycle.
12-Year Hydrostatic Test: The cylinder itself gets pressure-tested. Units that fail get condemned and replaced, which beats finding out during a fire.

Placement Is Half the Compliance

The code cares where extinguishers live as much as whether they work: travel distance limits mean a person should never be more than 75 feet from a unit (much less in kitchens and hazard areas), mounting heights are specified, and the class has to match the hazard, ABC in general areas, K-class within reach of commercial cooking, and CO2 or clean agent near server rooms and electrical gear. Renovations quietly break this: walls move, extinguishers don't, and the layout that passed in 2018 fails in 2026. Our annual visit re-checks the map, not just the tags.

Audit Your Coverage

Folded Into the Visit You Already Have

Extinguishers are the classic orphaned line item: too small for the sprinkler contractor to care about, too scattered for the office manager to track. We fold them into the same annual visit as your fire alarm testing and sprinkler inspection, so every tag in the building renews at once and one report covers the whole stack. Kitchens pair extinguisher service with hood suppression inspections on the semiannual cycle, which is why our restaurant customers in particular stopped juggling a separate extinguisher vendor. Units that fail get swapped on the spot from truck stock in common sizes.

Fire Extinguisher Questions

How much does fire extinguisher inspection cost?

Annual service typically runs a few dollars per unit when bundled with your other fire inspections, since the technician is already on site. Six-year maintenance and hydrostatic testing cost more per unit but only hit a fraction of your units each year. A building's total is usually a rounding error next to one failed fire inspection.

Can our own staff do the monthly quick checks?

Yes, and they should: the monthly check is a visual, gauge in the green, pin in place, unit where it belongs, and it's designed for building staff. The annual service, six-year maintenance, and hydro testing require a certified technician. We provide a simple monthly checklist your staff can actually keep up with.

How many extinguishers does my building need?

Enough that no one is more than 75 feet from one, closer in kitchens and high-hazard areas, with class matched to what's around it. The honest answer comes from walking the building, which we do as part of the first visit. Most buildings we audit are short a few units and have two mounted somewhere useless.

What kind of extinguisher does a commercial kitchen need?

K-class within 30 feet of the cooking line, in addition to the hood suppression system, not instead of it. The K-class unit exists to finish what the hood system starts, and inspectors check for both.

Do you replace extinguishers or just inspect them?

Both. Failed, condemned, or missing units get replaced from truck stock in common sizes during the same visit, and buildings adding coverage get units supplied, mounted, and signed. You end the visit fully tagged, not holding a to-do list.

Fire Extinguisher Inspection & Service

The Three Clocks on Every Extinguisher

Placement Is Half the Compliance

Folded Into the Visit You Already Have

Fire Extinguisher Questions

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