Fire Systems Firesafe 

Here is a brief story of my experience with dealing with people marking themselves as PUCK fire system installers and manufacturers.

The problem is that those people liquidate their LTD-s when something goes wrong and leave people with huge financial losses or faulty equipment.

Last year I agreed to get this fire suppression system installed in my house.
I Paid the installer (MFS Ltd) initial invoice, then for the first and second fix. They managed to do the first fix. Few weeks later I received an email from a "different" company saying that MFS Ltd stopped trading, and are being liquidated.
The company I got that email from (Elan Facility Management) had the same address and same directors as MFS Ltd. They were "willing" to finish the work for double the amount of my outstanding balance.

Moving forward I found a different installer, who was a bit cheaper but still lost hundreds of pounds.
I was happy that that was the end of the story, but unfortunately it was not the case.

The installer who finished the job last year, sent me an email few days ago saying that the pipes and fittings used in the system come from a bad batch and basically can burst and flood the apartment.
He mentioned as well that the manufacturer of the system (PUCK Fire Limited) stopped trading, and I am not covered by any manufacturer warranty at all.
He offered to replace the pipes suggesting that I would have to cover the whole cost, and then repair my ceiling myself (thousands £££).

Two things are important here:
The ower and director of the manufacturing company PUCK Fire Limited is now a main shareholder of HiPro Industries Ltd.
HiPro Industries Ltd uses exactly the same website and branding to promote their products and installers.

I'm sure there are hundreds of people that lost a lot of money and might have a faulty system which is a health and safety risk.
I would really like to warn as many people as possible.

It is regretful that I find myself writing this review as the product has promise to provide an elegant solution to home fire safety.

However, this is equipment that is going to be built into the fabric of your home for the life of the building and as such you need to be comfortable that the equipment is not going to fail and that the company is going to be around to support you into the future. I cannot be sure of either of these.

Most importantly – only months after being commission my system failed and flooded my house that I had just renovated with all of my savings and had put a huge amount of effort into. This failure was catastrophic and had I of not been at home would have completely flooded my home as it is designed to keep pumping and pumping until someone pulls the plug out of it.

Essentially a connector between to ceiling mounted nozzle and the pipework broke and this caused the pump to push water through the system. No alarm went off and it was only because I happened to be woken by the noise of the pump two storied down that I went downstairs to find my converted basement had been flooding for the last 15 minutes. All over my belonging which were being stored in the area at the time.

The fact that this has happened after only a few months now leaves me in a difficult dilemma; leave the system turned off and jeopardise the safety of my loved ones in the house or leave it turned on and risk returning to my home with it completely flooded. One of primary things a fire sprinkler system should not do is fail catastrophically and flood the building. Traditional mains-feed sprinkler systems are tried and tested not to do this and I wish I had gone down this more conventional route now.

It is also worth pointing out that one of the pumps had already had to be replaced as the first one failed too.

As I mentioned at the beginning another important consideration is whether the compay is going to be around in the years to come to support this equipment. The owner of Puck went into administration and it was purchased by another company called Hi-Pro, who also seems to be a small company. My first installer also went into administration twice – illegally passing me off between the first and second incarnation of their company so as to keep taking my stage payments to ‘purchase the equipment from Puck’. This equipment was never ordered from Puck and they disappeared with several thousand of pounds of mine. Another installer, Total Mist, then agreed to pick up the installation and commissioning. Total Mist has since done the same thing (changing their name to TM Services) despite it being the same people and the same address etc. and are using this to deny any liability for the incorrect commissioning of the system “this was done by Total Mist and not TM Services”. Despite my invoices having TM Services at the top of the page. All in all – their installer network is the worst of the worst of unreputable contractors. Puck need to accept some responsibility for managing the reputability of their approved installers and I fear that both they as a company and their installers are on fragile ground already.

In Elan Facilities Managements administration directors report (which is available publically via Companies House) they point the blame at Puck for the ultimate demise of their business due to supply chain issues. But I don’t trust them either to be honest.

I would also like to point out that I have given both Puck and the installer Total Mist (now trading ‘separately’ as TM Services and hence denying all responsibility) multiple opportunities to make good my situation but both have not replied to emails or requests for their Public Liability insurance details.

Think carefully about this expensive investment and the security of your belonging and loved one before making this decision!