Most fire alarm work is not installation. Insurance Code § 6002.002 defines SERVICE, or servicing, as inspection, maintenance, repair, or testing of a fire alarm device or a fire detection device, and defines MAINTENANCE as keeping such a device in a condition of repair that provides performance as originally designed or intended. Those two definitions between them cover almost everything a firm does after the first year of a system’s life — and the second one is quietly demanding, because “as originally designed or intended” points at a design the servicing firm may never have seen.

The requirement that governs the work is the one Chapter 8 set out for installation, stated again for the other half. 28 TAC § 34.616 provides that the maintenance or servicing of all fire detection and fire alarm devices or systems must be performed by or under the DIRECT ON-SITE SUPERVISION of a licensed fire alarm technician, residential fire alarm technician, residential fire alarm superintendent, or fire alarm planning superintendent — for the work permitted by the license. The same rule adds a point about whose authority attaches to the visit: THE LICENSEE ATTACHING A LABEL MUST BE LICENSED UNDER THE CERTIFICATE OF REGISTRATION NUMBER OF THE PRIMARY REGISTERED FIRM. A service visit therefore has a firm behind it as much as an installation does, and the label records which one.

Two obligations follow every visit rather than every job. 28 TAC § 34.616 requires the firm to keep COMPLETE RECORDS of all service, maintenance and testing on the system for a minimum of two years, available for examination by the state fire marshal or a representative. And 28 TAC § 34.621 requires a service label after ANY service, its signature certifying that the service performed complies with the requirements of law. Where the visit finds a system that does not comply, or one that is inoperable, faulted or impaired, the yellow and red labels and their notification clocks are Chapter 9’s subject and are not repeated here. What belongs here is the shape: on an existing system, the finding is part of the work, and the rules give a firm a way to record every outcome it can reach.