More on fire safety – old blocks and new regs esp snib locks and firms

Sorry about the long subject line! Ours is an old block of six units with a centrally monitored smoke alarm system installed for about four years now.

We have three issues in regard to our fire safety management.

1 – Where can we find the actual legislation telling us what is required? Our current certification firm suddenly this year told us we had to disable the snib locks in four doors opening to a common front foyer and quoted for it unasked. In spite of repeated requests they did not explain why they did this and where the legislation was that implied it was required. This is now 'on hold' and our building has been certified but it was much delayed by the to-ing and fro-ing.

2 – Our smoke alarms are battery operated due to building issues. They chew up heavy duty batteries at what seems to be a great rate. Do other people have this problem? Our current firm tells us this is common for the system we have and we have to live with it (but we don't have a lot of faith in this firm). We have very high ceilings and replacing the batteries is not a simple task.

3 – What do folks think are reasonable criteria for selecting a firm to do the fire safety checks and annual certification?  We are totally unimpressed with our current firm and want to change.