BAFE SP203-1 · Registration 303184
A BAFE registered fire
alarm company in London
Third-party certificated by NICEIC for the design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of fire detection and alarm systems. You do not have to take that on trust: the number below is on a public register and checking it takes about a minute.
- Registration 303184
- Scheme held SP203-1, fire alarms
- Certificated by NICEIC
What does BAFE registration actually mean?
BAFE is a register of fire safety companies that have been independently audited against a published scheme. BAFE does not do the auditing itself: it licenses certification bodies, such as NICEIC, to assess a firm and keep assessing it. Registration is scheme by scheme, so a company registered for fire alarms has proved nothing about extinguishers or risk assessments. It is not a legal requirement. It is the difference between a company saying it is competent and a third party having checked.
That last distinction is the whole value of it, and it is why insurers and managing agents ask. Under the Fire Safety Order 2005 the duty to appoint a competent person sits with you, the Responsible Person. If the person you appointed turns out not to have been competent, that is your problem, not theirs. Third-party certification is the cheapest way to discharge that duty with evidence rather than with hope.
Questions about BAFE registered fire alarm work?
You get an engineer on the phone, not a call centre. Free survey, written quote, no obligation.
There are nine BAFE schemes. Most people are told about one.
“BAFE approved” on its own is close to meaningless, because it never says for what. This is the full list from the BAFE register, with the one we hold marked. We publish the eight we do not hold as well, which is the point.
| Scheme | Covers | What that is | We hold it |
|---|---|---|---|
| SP203-1 | Fire detection and fire alarm systems | Design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of alarm systems in non-domestic buildings. | Yes |
| SP203-3 | Fixed gaseous fire extinguishing systems | Suppression systems that flood a room with gas, typically server and plant rooms. | No |
| SP203-4 | Emergency lighting systems | The lighting that keeps an escape route usable when the power fails. | No |
| SP205 | Life safety fire risk assessment | Carrying out the fire risk assessment itself. | No |
| SP101 | Portable fire extinguishers | Commissioning and maintaining extinguishers. | No |
| SP105 | Dry riser and wet riser maintenance | The pipework the fire service connects to on arrival. | No |
| SP206 | Kitchen fire suppression systems | Suppression over commercial cooking ranges and fryers. | No |
| SP207 | Evacuation alert systems | Systems that let the fire service alert residents floor by floor in tall residential buildings. | No |
| DS301 | Grade D domestic fire detection | Mains-powered detection inside dwellings. | No |
Scheme list read from the BAFE Register Search tool on 10 September 2026. If a contractor tells you they are BAFE approved, the useful question is which of these nine they mean.
What ours covers, and what it does not
We hold SP203-1 and nothing else. It covers four separate stages of fire detection and alarm work in non-domestic buildings, and the audit looks at all four:
- Design — the category, the zone plan and the cause-and-effect matrix, issued as a design certificate
- Installation — the physical work, to BS 5839-1
- Commissioning — proving the finished system does what the design says
- Maintenance — the six-monthly service cycle, with a certificate each visit
We also do emergency lighting, extinguisher servicing, fire doors and fire risk assessments. Those are not covered by our BAFE registration and we do not claim they are. On those pages we name the British Standard the work is carried out to instead: BS 5266-1, BS 5306, BS 476-22 and the Fire Safety Order.
Certificated, or self-declared
Both look identical on a website. They are not the same thing, and the difference is what you are buying when you choose a registered firm.
- Who checked An independent certification body audited the firm against a published scheme, and keeps auditing it. NICEIC The company decided it was competent and said so on its website.
- What you can verify A registration number on a public register, returning the entity, the town and every scheme held. 303184 A logo, which is a picture file.
- If it goes wrong You appointed a firm whose competence a third party had assessed. That is a defensible decision. Evidence You appointed a firm on its own say-so, and the duty to appoint a competent person was yours.
- Scope Stated per scheme, so you know exactly what was assessed and what was not. Per scheme “BAFE approved”, with no scheme named and nothing to check.
Our registration is SP203-1, fire detection and alarm systems, only. Every other service we offer names the British Standard it is worked to.
How to check any company, ours included, in about a minute
This is worth doing before you take a quote from anybody, and it is genuinely fast.
Ask for the registration number. Not the logo, not a certificate PDF, the number. Any registered firm gives it immediately.
Enter it on the BAFE Register Verification tool. It returns the registered organisation name, its town, and each scheme held with the certification body named against it.
Read what came back. Check the scheme matches the work you are buying. Check the company name, and if it differs from the trading name, ask why: there is often a perfectly good answer, and ours is that BAFE registers legal entities.
Verify us
- Enter
- 303184 in the Organisation ID field
- You should see
- Electro Heating Limited, London
- Scheme
- BAFE SP203-1, Fire Detection and Alarm Systems
- Certificated by
- NICEIC
- Checked
- 10 September 2026
What people ask about BAFE
Is BAFE registration a legal requirement?
No. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires the Responsible Person to appoint someone competent, and it does not name BAFE or any other scheme as the way to prove that. What third-party certification does is settle the question with evidence rather than assertion: an independent certification body has audited the firm against the scheme and continues to audit it. That is why insurers, managing agents and enforcing authorities ask for it even though no statute demands it. A company can be perfectly competent without registration; it just has nothing but its own word to offer you.
How do I check whether a company is really BAFE registered?
Ask for the registration number, then enter it yourself on the BAFE Register Verification tool. It takes under a minute and it returns the registered organisation, the town, and every scheme they actually hold. Do not accept a logo on a website or a van as evidence, because a logo is a picture and the register is a record. Ours is 303184. Entering it returns Electro Heating Limited, which is the legal entity Flame Shield London trades as.
Why does the register show a different company name?
Because BAFE registers legal entities, not trading names. Flame Shield London is a trading name of Electro Heating Limited, company number 12609754, and it is that company the registration sits with. If you search 303184 you will see Electro Heating Limited, London. That is the correct result, not a discrepancy, and we would rather explain it here than have you find it and wonder.
Which BAFE scheme do I actually need?
It depends entirely on the work, and this is where most confusion starts. Fire alarms are SP203-1. The fire risk assessment itself is SP205. Extinguishers are SP101. Emergency lighting is SP203-4. They are separate registrations with separate audits, and holding one says nothing whatsoever about the others. A firm advertising itself as "BAFE approved" without naming a scheme is telling you almost nothing.
Which scheme do you hold?
SP203-1 only, third-party certificated by NICEIC. That covers the design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of fire detection and alarm systems in non-domestic premises, and it is the only BAFE claim we make anywhere. We also carry out emergency lighting, extinguisher, fire door and fire risk assessment work, and on those we name the British Standard the work is done to instead, because we do not hold the BAFE scheme for them and will not imply we do.
What should I ask a contractor who says they are BAFE approved?
Three questions. What is your registration number, so I can check it. Which scheme is it, so I know what it covers. And who certificates you, because BAFE licenses independent certification bodies to do the auditing rather than doing it itself. A registered firm answers all three in about ten seconds. A firm that has put the logo on its website because it looks reassuring usually cannot answer the first one.
Where this comes from
- BS 5839-1, fire detection and alarm systems in non-domestic premisesBSI
- BS 5266-1, emergency lighting code of practiceBSI
- BS 5306-3, commissioning and maintenance of portable fire extinguishersBSI
- Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005legislation.gov.uk
- BAFE, the third-party certification body for scheme SP203-1bafe.org.uk
We name the standard rather than quoting it. British Standards are copyright of BSI and have to be bought from them; the links above are to the publisher so you can check any figure on this page against the source.
Free survey · No obligation
Check the number, then talk to us
Verify 303184 first if you want to. Then tell us about the building: the survey and the written quote are both free, and the quote names the standard every line is worked to.
- BAFE SP203-1 registered for fire alarms, Fike and C-TEC certified
- Written quote before any work starts
- Called back within 24 to 48 hours