Fire Safety Consultant's Visit.

Today the weather has yet again turned out to be much better than expected and so mild. This is really so peculiar to have such mild weather this late in the year.
This morning I stayed in as I was due to have a Fire Safety Consultant do an inspection. I've had to bite the bullet and get a professional in to write our Fire Risk Assessment as I have been left in confusion about what is actually required! Due to changes in the law, as a provider of overnight  accommodation the onus is now on the owner to produce  a Fire Risk Assessment and from that ensure that all necessary precautions are taken so that the property is as safe as possible for paying guests. Due to having been given confusing advice from  the fire service!! the work that I'd had done was not fully compliant with the rules and my Risk Assessment was considered to be insufficient. Initially when the audit was done back in January I actually considered giving up the idea of doing B&B as the cost of installing a new fire detection system, installing emergency lighting etc in what is after all our home just seemed to be totally out of proportion and extremely expensive. The main reason for  more demands being made on me is that I'm right on the border line of when a more complex system is required . Even though we can only accommodate up to 6 guests and usually it's more likely to be 2-4 guests because the 2nd room is above the 1st floor level that is what makes the big difference. After having had further discussions with the Fire Service they relented on some of their demands but then made others so in the end I thought it best to get an  opinion from a  professional Fire Safety Consultant .
After the survey, thankfully he agreed with me that we do not require the emergency lighting and do not need a new detection system but can add to the hard wired smoke alarms we already have. Let's hope that this now means it is all sorted. The joke is that these new regulations are an  EU directive.............do you think accommodation owners in Greece and Spain adhere to these rules and regulations...I don't think so!
Now I need some therapy.....I think a good bracing walk will fit the bill.