Fire / ESM
Fire Protection Services and Essential Safety Measures
Design, installation and maintenance of every essential safety measure in your building, documented by one team.
What Are Essential Safety Measures?
Essential safety measures are the systems and features in your building that protect people in an emergency. They include fire detection and alarms, sprinklers and suppression, hydrants and hose reels, extinguishers, emergency lighting, exit signage, fire doors, smoke control, and the building fabric that holds fire back.
Under Victorian building regulations, these measures must be maintained so they keep performing as they were designed to, and that maintenance must be recorded. The responsibility sits with the building owner, not with the contractor doing the work.
That distinction matters more than most building owners realise. You can engage a service provider, receive the invoices, and still carry the exposure if the work behind them was incomplete. Your provider needs to be properly qualified, transparent about what they've done, and accountable for the records they produce.
The Annual Essential Safety Measures Report
Each year the building owner is required to prepare an Annual Essential Safety Measures Report, confirming that every measure has been maintained and remains capable of performing to its required standard. It must be kept on site and made available on request.
An AESMR is only as good as the evidence behind it. We maintain that evidence continuously, logging every inspection, test, defect and rectification as it happens. Your report then summarises work that's already documented rather than triggering a scramble each year.
Fire Equipment Maintenance to AS 1851
AS 1851 is the Australian Standard for the routine service of fire protection systems and equipment. It sets out what gets inspected, how it's tested, how often, and what a pass looks like, with cycles running from monthly through to multi-year depending on the equipment.
Our schedules are built directly against it. Each site gets a program mapped to the equipment actually installed, at the frequencies the standard requires, with records that stand up to scrutiny.
Through Uptick, every result is captured on site as the work happens: photo-rich defect reports, tracked rectifications and a compliance dashboard covering every location you manage. When a council officer, insurer or auditor asks for evidence, you're not hunting through email.
Needs an approved capture showing
TCM's own use of the platform.
Fire Systems We Install, Maintain and Repair
Detection and alarm
- Fire control and indicator panels (FIPs)
- Fire detectors and smoke alarms
- Alarm and occupant warning systems
- Monitoring and brigade connection
Suppression and water supply
- Sprinkler systems
- Fire pumps and pump sets
- Hydrants, hose reels and fire mains
- Static water supply
- Fire extinguishers
- Gas suppression systems
Egress, passive and building fabric
- Emergency and exit lighting
- Exit signs and exit doors
- Fire doors and fire-rated building fabric
- Smoke control measures and fire dampers (maintained by our mechanical team — see Mechanical/HVAC)
Compliance Doesn't Stop at Fire
Your fire compliance obligations don't all sit with your fire contractor, and that catches a lot of buildings out.
Fire dampers are mechanical equipment. Smoke control runs through the HVAC system. Emergency lighting is electrical. Fire mode testing needs the mechanical plant driven through its emergency sequences. Split those across three companies and you get three partial reports, no single view, and gaps that only become visible when something is tested for real.
TCM maintains all three disciplines with one team reporting to one director. Every essential safety measure in the building is covered, tested together, and recorded in one place, with nobody to point at but us.
Fire System Design, Upgrades and Installation
As well as maintaining fire systems, we design and install them: new systems, staged upgrades, and end-of-life replacements planned around an operating building.
Fire indicator panel upgrade at 2 Riverside Quay, Southbank
A FIP upgrade in a fully tenanted Southbank tower, delivered on schedule in an active precinct without disrupting occupants. Afterwards Mirvac's facilities management team put our site lead forward for recognition, citing his technical expertise, proactive problem-solving and the safe working environment he maintained throughout.
"He was committed to ensuring the project stayed on schedule at the same time as ensuring that the high quality of the work was maintained."
Qualified to Be Accountable
- FPAA Gold Member
- Victorian Building Authority registered
- ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 certified
- Cm3 accredited
- Directly employed, certified technicians
- 24/7 emergency coverage for existing clients
Our people sit on industry committees, so we see regulatory change coming rather than reacting to it.
Fire Protection and ESM: Common Questions
The building owner. Engaging a service provider doesn't transfer that responsibility, which is why the quality of your provider's work and records matters so much. You're relying on them to keep you compliant.
An Annual Essential Safety Measures Report confirms that all essential safety measures in your building have been maintained over the past year. It's prepared annually, kept on site, and produced on request. We maintain the underlying evidence continuously, so yours is straightforward to produce.
AS 1851 sets frequencies by equipment type, ranging from monthly through to multi-year cycles. Your program should reflect what's actually installed, so we map it site by site.
Risks include enforcement action, insurance complications, and in serious cases restrictions on occupying the building, alongside the obvious safety exposure. Most non-compliance we encounter isn't deliberate. It's gaps between contractors that nobody noticed.
Yes. We'll audit the installed equipment, review the maintenance history, and tell you honestly what state things are in, including anything the previous records don't account for.
Know Exactly Where Your Building Stands
Fill out the form and our team will come back to you with what's required, what it costs and when we can do it.
You can also call (03) 8470 9600.