The shop keeps the extinguisher and the exit sign working

Last updated 31 October 2026.

A shop’s fire gear fails in view of customers. The extinguisher sits behind a gondola. The gauge is in the red. The exit sign above the door is dark, and someone has stuck a promotion across it. Staff describe all of that as “the safety stuff”. The duties are split, and the split is the point of this page. Looking is the occupier’s job. Opening an extinguisher and putting a service label on it is a certified workshop’s job. Designing or moving the exit sign is a qualified person’s fire-safety submission. A handyman who swaps the sign for a track light, or who shakes an extinguisher and calls it serviced, has done the sloppy version of all three.

SCDF’s page on portable extinguishers says units that are required must be built to SS EN 3 and maintained, charged, tested and tagged to SS 578. The owner or occupier should inspect at least monthly: not obstructed, instructions legible and facing out, full when hefted or weighed, no obvious damage, corrosion, leak or clogged nozzle, gauge in the operable range. SCDF’s briefing on SS 578 adds the tamper seal and the next maintenance date on the service label. Maintenance, as distinct from that look, is at least yearly or when the inspection finds a fault, by a competent person of an approved organisation certified by the certification body SCDF names. From 1 January 2020 the serviced extinguisher carries that body’s control tag as well as the service label. SCDF’s own FAQ says it does not approve, endorse or recommend extinguisher products. A supplier who claims an SCDF endorsement is, in SCDF’s words, false and misleading.

HDB’s shop guide tells the tenant to maintain exit lighting, emergency lights, the manual fire alarm, hose reels and extinguishers to FSSD’s standard. That is a tenant duty in an HDB shop. It is not a contract with us. A mall handbook, such as Heartbeat@Bedok’s fit-out guide, tells tenants to keep extinguishing equipment, exit lighting and emergency lighting maintained. Again, that is the tenant’s duty. Our role on this page is to say which visit we will not pretend to do.

Curtains, blinds and roller shades are not part of this booking. A roller shutter is a different product and stays on the shutter page.

A monthly inspection is a walk, not a workshop. The person walks the path a customer walks. The extinguisher is where the plan put it, the sign is readable, the gauge is in range, the pin and seal are there, and a CO2 extinguisher is weighed rather than hefted if that is the only way to know it is full. SCDF says CO2 contents are checked by weighing. A record is kept when something is wrong, with the date and the initials. If the inspection finds damage or a failed gauge, the extinguisher goes for maintenance, and a unit of the same type and at least the same rating stands in while it is gone. We do not leave the hook empty. We also do not perform that maintenance. Homey Furnishing is not a certified extinguisher workshop and does not issue a control tag.

The exit sign is a different object from a shop spotlight. Clause 8.1.7 requires a sign over the entrance to every exit on every floor, clearly visible, and signs over exit-access doors of rooms with more than one door. Decorations, furnishings and equipment must not impair it, and a brightly lit sign that is not an exit sign must not sit in the line of vision. Where there is no engineered smoke control, the code wants at least 500 mm between the top of the exit sign and the soffit. Low-level signs, where they are used, do not replace the sign above the door. Exemptions exist for some small rooms. They are drawn in the code. A contractor who removes a sign because “the room is small” without reading the diagram is guessing.

Exit lighting is the light that stays on when the supply fails. Clause 8.1.1 points the illuminance and the spacing at SS 563, and the code’s explanation on that page is not less than 0.5 lux on the centre line of the escape route, at the floor, for at least one hour. In staircases and exit passageways the changeover must not interrupt the light for more than one second. Corridors and lobbies follow the same lighting rule. A battery pack has to be the type that stays charged and can run for that hour. Street lighting outside the shopfront does not count. A dark exit sign is not fixed by aiming a track light at the door. Replacing or relocating the sign is listed by SCDF as fire safety work that needs plan approval by a qualified person before the work. A failed lamp inside an existing sign, if the sign itself stays, is still not a decorative lamp price. It is quote on inspection, and only if a licensed electrical worker is content it is maintenance of the existing sign rather than a new installation. We will not certify the result.

Photograph the extinguisher, the gauge, the label, and the view from the door to the sign. Say whether you want a monthly routine explained, or whether a workshop has already condemned a unit. We will not quote an annual service. Ask a company on the certification body’s list. If the sign is dark, say whether the fitting is still the approved sign or whether someone wants it moved.

Shelves, cameras and paint stop at the sign. The shelving page and the camera page both refuse to cover it. A patch that would bury a detector stops as well.

Split the look, the workshop, and the plan.

Questions a shop should ask

Ask who is allowed to sign the label.

1. Is this a monthly look, or a unit that has already failed it?
2. Who is the certified workshop, and will a same-rating unit stay on the hook?
3. Is the exit sign blocked, dark, or being moved?
4. Does the room actually fall under an exemption diagram, or is that a guess?
5. Is a licensed electrical worker opening the sign?
6. Will anyone certify the result? We will not.
7. Does the quote claim an SCDF endorsement of a brand? SCDF says that claim is misleading.
8. Is a shelf, a camera or a promotion in the line of sight?

Dwellings are the exception in clause 6.1. A shop is not a dwelling.

SS 578, as SCDF’s briefing summarises it, separates inspection from maintenance. Inspection is the visual check: correct location, not obstructed, service label showing the next date, label legible, tamper seal intact, gauge in range, fullness by weight, no physical damage. The occupier or a person they designate does that. Maintenance is a thorough examination of the extinguisher and its contents, at least once a year or sooner if the inspection failed. The workshop does not send a third party to stick the label on. The briefing says the approved organisation does not appoint someone else to inspect, maintain, recharge and issue the label on its behalf.

Hydrostatic test intervals are in the standard. A trade page will quote five years for powder, water and foam and ten years for gas types. Those intervals are the workshop’s, and they are not a price. If your label is silent, the workshop reads the standard. We will not guess a test date from a faded sticker and then sell a new cylinder.

Placement is along the way out, not beside the risk in a way that the fire makes the extinguisher unreachable. Clause 6.1 says special-risk extinguishers sit near the risk but not so near that the fire cuts them off. A deep-fryer extinguisher stored above the fryer fails that sentence. The operating instructions face outward, including inside a cabinet.

The authorities are SCDF for the Fire Code and for the extinguisher page, and HDB where the shop guide copies the FSSD duty onto the tenant. SS 578 and SS EN 3 and SS 563 are the standards those pages name. We are not the certification body and not the workshop.

Electrical work inside an exit sign, if it is done at all, is an EMA licensed electrical worker. Moving the sign is a qualified person under the Fire Safety Act. A shelf that hides the sign is still your merchandising problem, and it is cheaper to move the shelf.

Official pages

• SCDF: portable fire extinguishers and SS 578
• SCDF Fire Code 2023 clause 6.1: portable extinguishers
• SCDF Fire Code 2023 clause 8.1: exit lighting and exit signs
• HDB renovation guide for shop tenants and owners, December 2025

Homey Furnishing Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 202018148K), 27 Mandai Estate, #06-10 Innovation Place, Singapore 729931, invoices the permit-exempt visit. V On Construction Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 201611708H), on the HDB Directory of Renovation Contractors, invoices hacking, a new layout, and an HDB renovation permit. Homey Furnishing is not a property agency, not a CEA practice, and not a vector-control operator.

How you're charged

A job that already has a sentence on HomeySG uses that sentence. The hour is not added on top of a band unless the written scope says so. There is no fuel surcharge and no published night premium except the mall overnight row. A shop does not inherit a flat’s price just because the fitting looks similar.

No extinguisher service and no exit-sign certification is priced. A decorative lamp that matches the lighting page is a different visit. Do not let the two share an invoice line.

Ways to keep the bill smaller

• Walk the floor monthly and write the date. The workshop visit is for faults, not for a look you skipped.
• Keep a spare of the same rating if the workshop has to take one away. An empty hook is the finding.
• Move the gondola, not the sign.
• Ignore any sales line that says SCDF endorsed the brand.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630.

The fire gear is unpriced here on purpose. Nearby fittings that are priced are listed so they are not confused with it.

Anything not in that table is quote on inspection.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630. The reply uses a band already printed on HomeySG, or it says quote on inspection.

• Decorative lights, kept separate
• Shelves that must not cover the sign
• A door that still has to close
• When moving a sign needs a plan
• The HDB shop duty to maintain them