Aura Fire Safety inspects, repairs and monitors the fire protection systems in buildings that Bay Area property managers and HOA boards look after: fire sprinklers, fire alarms, fire pumps, kitchen hood suppression and emergency lighting. We hold both a C-16 fire protection license and a C-10 electrical license, so one contractor handles the piping and the alarm panel. We have served San Francisco Bay Area buildings for over 27 years.
State License C-16 and C-10 #1116233. State Fire Marshal E 2336. You get the quote before any work begins, with no hidden fees.
We do five kinds of work for property managers: inspections and testing, sprinkler repairs, fire alarm design, installation and monitoring, fire pump service, and kitchen hood and emergency lighting service.
Aura Fire Safety inspects and tests every system named above and issues the report or certification for each. That includes Title 19 fire sprinkler inspections at the quarterly, annual and 5-year marks, wet and dry standpipes, and the annual fire alarm inspection under NFPA 72. The schedule for each system is in the table further down.
We repair what an inspection finds and what fails between inspections. Typical jobs are corroded or damaged sprinkler heads, heads recalled by the manufacturer, pipe fractures, leaks and faulty valves. A system with outdated or recalled heads gets new heads, not a proposal for a new system. Our fire sprinkler repair service runs under the same contract as the inspection, so you do not have to find and brief a second contractor.
Aura Fire Safety designs and installs fire alarm systems for multi-unit residential and commercial buildings, then keeps them inspected and monitored. A fire alarm design for an apartment or condo building starts with the layout: common areas, individual units and emergency access points. Once the system is in, our 24-hour monitoring station notifies the fire department when an alarm comes in. The fire alarm systems page covers installation, annual certification and monitoring together.
A building with a restaurant or cafe tenant has a kitchen hood suppression system that needs service every six months, and we handle the kitchen hood inspection and maintenance. We call every six months to book the next visit. For hallways, stairwells and common areas, our emergency lighting and exit sign service covers the annual 90-minute test plus repair or replacement of the units that fail it.
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Each system runs on its own schedule, which is why a single building can have several due dates in the same year.
System | How often | What the visit covers |
Fire sprinkler system | Quarterly, annual and every 5 years | Quarterly visits cover select components. The annual visit is the full inspection and testing. The 5-year visit is an internal pipe and obstruction investigation. |
Fire alarm system | Annual, with a semi-annual visit in some buildings | Every detection device, notification appliance, backup battery and panel function, tested under NFPA 72. |
Fire pump | Weekly run, annual flow test, 5-year certification | A weekly run confirms the pump starts, the annual test measures it under actual flow, and the 5-year test compares it with the original factory test. |
Kitchen hood suppression system | Every 6 months | Applies to any building with a commercial kitchen. You receive a certification when the system passes. |
Emergency lighting and exit signs | Annual | A 90-minute test that goes further than pressing the test button. |
Two of those rows need a closer look. A quarterly sprinkler visit is narrower than the annual one, and our comparison of quarterly and annual fire sprinkler inspections shows what each one checks. Whether your building also needs a mid-year alarm visit depends on the building type and the local fire authority, which our post on semi-annual and annual fire alarm inspections explains.
Between professional visits, the monthly visual check of the fire alarm system is the owner’s or manager’s job. To see how the dates fall across twelve months, use our annual fire inspection calendar for Bay Area property managers.
Our property management work centers on multi-unit residential buildings of 20 to 100 or more units: apartment buildings, condominiums and HOA-managed communities. We also work with building owners and investors who hold several properties, and with mixed-use buildings where a ground-floor restaurant brings a kitchen hood system into the picture. Our guide to fire protection for multi-family properties goes through what larger residential buildings need system by system.
The building owner holds the legal responsibility for fire protection systems, and the management agreement typically hands the day-to-day coordination to the property manager. In an HOA-managed building, the board is typically the party that schedules the annual inspection of the common-area fire alarm system and keeps its records. When an inspection lapses or a deficiency goes uncorrected, the consequences land on the owner and the manager alike. The split is covered in full in what property managers are legally required to do for fire safety.
A job with Aura Fire Safety runs in seven steps, and the first one usually happens by phone.
The San Francisco Fire Department can request inspection records at any time, and missing or incomplete records can bring a notice of violation even when the system works. So we format our reports to meet SFFD documentation requirements. Before a visit from the fire department, read our guide to preparing your building for a fire marshal inspection. For the full record-keeping routine, see our operational guide to fire safety for property managers.
Fire alarm inspections and fire sprinkler inspections each start at $395, and kitchen hood inspections and emergency lighting inspections each start at $295. Those starting prices apply to smaller properties.
Four things move an inspection price for a larger building:
Repairs, fire alarm installation, monitoring and fire pump service are quoted per job. Whatever the work, the quote is fixed before it begins, and you will not find hidden fees, unexpected overtime or upcharges on the invoice.
Aura Fire Safety services both fire sprinkler systems and fire alarm systems, a combination few Bay Area contractors offer. Your Title 19 sprinkler report and your alarm certification come from one company. A 60-room hotel at Fisherman’s Wharf needed its annual sprinkler and alarm certifications for its insurer. Within 24 hours we tested both systems, corrected the minor discrepancies and issued the test reports.
You can reach our office by call, text or email, Monday to Friday, 8 am to 5 pm.
Owners and boards of multi-unit buildings already use us year after year. One owner hired us to test and certify the fire panels in two San Francisco apartment buildings, had a failed detector replaced in each, and plans to use us for future annual certifications. The HOA leader of a SOMA condominium building wrote that we were “the first company I have found to actually focus on the customer.” A Mission district school has stayed on our quarterly and annual certification schedule since we finished its kitchen hood project. You can read these and other projects in our fire protection case studies.
A licensed fire protection contractor performs them. Title 19 requires licensed contractors for sprinkler testing and maintenance, and annual fire alarm inspections must also be done by a licensed contractor. The fire department enforces the rules and can ask to see the contractor’s reports.
No. A fire alarm inspection does not require the building to be vacated. Horns and strobes will sound during testing, so tell residents the date in advance. Technicians also need access to any in-unit devices that are connected to the central panel.
Yes. A certification lasts until the next inspection for that system falls due. That is six months for a kitchen hood system and one year for a fire alarm system or for emergency lighting. Sprinkler systems are on quarterly, annual and 5-year intervals.
The building owner is legally responsible for the fire alarm inspection even when the lease assigns the cost to tenants. Every device in every tenant space is tested as part of the one building-wide inspection. Our post on fire alarm inspections in multi-tenant buildings covers who handles what.
