Hot work permit form
Welding, cutting, grinding or torch work — the checks, the window, the fire watch, and the closeout. Your authorized person issues it; we just supply the form.
We don’t issue permits — you do
Worth being plain about, because it decides who is responsible for what. CompliMaint is not a fire marshal, an insurer, or an authority having jurisdiction. A facility hot work permit is issued by your authorized person under your hot work program. This is the form they issue it on, with the watch times worked out.
And check your jurisdiction: some require a permit from the fire department for hot work, which is a separate permit from a different body. This does not replace it.
The permit is not paperwork, it’s a separation of roles
Hot work is the most common way maintenance starts a fire, and the control for it isn’t skill — it’s procedure. Someone who is not holding the torch confirms the area is safe and sets a bounded window. Someone whose only job is watching stays with the area. The person doing the work concentrates on the work.
A checklist the welder ticks for themselves is the failure mode, not the control. That’s why the signatures on this permit are different people.
The part everyone skips
The watch after the work stops. Ignition is usually delayed — something smolders out of sight, behind the wall or on the far side of the floor, and surfaces an hour after everyone has packed up and gone. That is the whole reason the watch continues, and it is the single most skipped step on any hot work job.
The tool takes your finish time and shows you the two moments that matter: when the continuous watch can end, and when the final check of the area is due. Your insurer or authority having jurisdiction may require longer than the common practice shown — use theirs.
One job, one place, one window
A permit covers a single job in a single location for a bounded period. If the work moves, or the shift changes, it needs a new permit. A permit left open across a shift change is how the watch quietly stops happening while everyone assumes somebody else has it.
Where it meets the other tools
The job usually arrives as a work order, and if an outside contractor is doing it, their certificate should be current on your COI register before they light anything. The completed permit belongs with your fire-safety records — the log book is where those live, alongside the Compliance Calendar entries for the sprinkler and alarm systems this permit asks you to confirm are in service.
If a system is impaired, that is a different procedure with its own fire watch, and the emergency plan is where the response to an actual fire is written down.
A blank permit form in the conventional format. CompliMaint issues no permits and is not an authority having jurisdiction; the permit is issued by the facility, by its own authorized person, and is valid only so far as that facility’s hot work program makes it so. Where a jurisdiction requires a fire department permit, that is separate and this does not substitute for it. Distances and watch intervals shown are common practice, described as such — not code citations. General information, not code or legal advice. Everything runs on your device.
Questions people ask
- What work needs a hot work permit?
- Any work producing flame, sparks or enough heat to ignite something: welding, cutting and torching, grinding, brazing and soldering, torch-applied roofing, and thawing frozen pipe with a flame. In most facilities the permit applies anywhere outside a designated, purpose-built hot work area such as a properly equipped shop.
- How long must a fire watch continue after hot work?
- The point is that ignition is often delayed — material smolders out of sight before it flames. Common practice is a continuous watch for at least 30 to 60 minutes after work stops, followed by a further check of the area, including the far side of walls and floors, for up to a few hours. Insurers and authorities having jurisdiction frequently set their own longer figures, and where they do, theirs govern.
- Who should sign a hot work permit?
- Someone other than the person doing the work. The permit exists to force a separation of roles: an authorizing officer confirms the area is safe and sets the time window, a fire watch whose only job is watching stays with the area, and the person performing the work concentrates on the work. A checklist the welder ticks for themselves is the failure mode, not the control.
- How far do combustibles need to be moved?
- Common practice is to clear combustibles for about 35 feet in every direction, including above and below the work, and to cover anything that cannot be moved with listed welding pads or non-combustible curtains. Floor and wall openings within that radius need covering too, because sparks travel through ducts, gaps and cable penetrations into spaces nobody is watching.