Facilities maintenance guide
SFG20 explained: what it is, whether it's a legal requirement, and how to actually deliver it.
SFG20 is the UK's recognised library of planned preventive maintenance (PPM) task schedules. This is a plain-English guide for facilities and maintenance managers — what it is, the honest answer on whether it's the law, and how to turn a schedule into evidenced, completed work.
SFG20 meaning, in one line
SFG20 means the UK's recognised library of planned preventive maintenance schedules — a task-by-task specification of what each building asset needs, how often, and to what standard, published by the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA).
In plain English: it is the maintenance industry's agreed answer to "what counts as looking after this asset properly?", written down per asset type — so a fire alarm panel or an air handling unit gets the same recognised regime whoever maintains it.
What is SFG20?
SFG20 is the industry-standard library of planned preventive maintenance (PPM) task schedules for building engineering services, published and maintained by the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA).
Each schedule sets out the maintenance tasks a given asset type needs, how often, and to what standard — so a facilities team maintaining a chiller, a fire alarm, or an emergency lighting system is working to a common, recognised specification rather than a spec someone wrote from memory.
SFG20 is a subscription product with its own software: you licence access to BESA's schedule library and it is kept current as regulations change. Fixray is not an SFG20 schedule library and does not resell one — this page explains the standard and where a maintenance system like Fixray fits alongside it.
Is SFG20 a legal requirement?
No — SFG20 is not itself a law, and using it is not legally mandatory. It is the widely recognised way to demonstrate that your planned maintenance meets the statutory duties that ARE law.
UK building owners and duty holders carry statutory obligations under legislation such as the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, and — for higher-risk buildings — the Building Safety Act 2022. In healthcare, the Health Technical Memoranda (HTMs) set the expected maintenance standards; for water systems, the Approved Code of Practice L8 governs Legionella control.
None of those name SFG20. What they require is that in-scope assets are maintained to a suitable standard and that you can evidence it. SFG20 is the maintenance industry's answer to "what does a suitable standard actually look like, task by task?" — which is why insurers, auditors, and clients so often ask for SFG20-aligned PPM even though no statute names it.
This is general information, not legal advice — a competent person or your responsible person should confirm what applies to your buildings.
What SFG20 covers
SFG20 covers the planned maintenance of building engineering assets, with each task classified by criticality so teams can prioritise the work that carries statutory or safety weight.
Asset types
Schedules span the building services estate — HVAC and air handling units (AHUs), fire alarms and fire dampers, emergency lighting, fixed-wire (EICR) and portable appliance (PAT) testing, water treatment and Legionella control, lifts, and more.
Red / amber / green task coding
Every task carries a colour: red for statutory or safety-critical work you cannot skip, amber for tasks that optimise performance and efficiency, green for aesthetic or minor discretionary work. It makes the non-negotiables obvious at a glance.
Schedule structure & frequency
Each schedule lists the individual tasks, the skill level required, and the frequency — daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual — so a maintenance regime can be built and resourced from a recognised baseline rather than guesswork.
SFG20 red, amber and green explained
SFG20 classifies every task by criticality, so the work you cannot defer is obvious before anyone opens a schedule.
| Colour | What it covers | Can you defer it? |
|---|---|---|
| Red | Statutory and safety-critical tasks — the maintenance a legal duty or a recognised safety regime depends on. | No. A missed red task is where compliance exposure starts, and it is the first thing an auditor looks for. |
| Amber | Tasks that keep an asset running efficiently and extend its working life. | Sometimes — deferring is a cost, energy and reliability decision rather than a legal one. |
| Green | Aesthetic or minor discretionary work with no safety or statutory weight. | Yes, with the least consequence — these are the first to flex when budget or resource is tight. |
How often planned maintenance typically comes round
SFG20 sets a frequency per task. These are the cadences a UK venue is usually resourcing against, and the shape a maintenance system has to be able to hold.
| Cadence | Typical maintenance it carries |
|---|---|
| Weekly | Fire-alarm call-point test (a different call point each week); flushing little-used water outlets. |
| Monthly | Emergency-lighting function test; sentinel hot and cold water temperature checks. |
| Quarterly | Plant and air handling unit inspections — filters, belts, drive and condition checks. |
| Six-monthly | Thorough examination of passenger lifts under the LOLER regulations. |
| Annual | Full-duration emergency-lighting test; fire-damper drop testing; pressure-system inspection. |
| Multi-year | Fixed-wire installation testing (EICR) — commonly every five years for commercial premises. |
Indicative only. The frequency that applies to a given asset comes from the SFG20 schedule you licence and your own risk assessment, not from this page.
How to actually deliver SFG20
Owning the schedule library is the start, not the finish. The standard only protects you once the tasks are scheduled, assigned to someone, completed on time, and recorded with evidence an auditor will accept.
- 1
Scheduled
Turn the relevant SFG20 schedules into a live maintenance calendar — recurring jobs at the daily, weekly, monthly, and annual cadences each task specifies, so nothing depends on someone remembering.
- 2
Assigned
Every task needs an owner — an in-house engineer or a contractor — with the skill level the schedule calls for, so red statutory tasks never sit unallocated.
- 3
Recorded
As work is done it is logged against the specific asset: who did it, when, and the outcome. A gap in the record is, in practice, a gap in compliance.
- 4
Evidenced
When an insurer, an EHO, or a client asks, you can produce the per-asset trail — photos, timestamps, and sign-off — that shows the statutory tasks were completed, not just planned.
How Fixray helps you deliver SFG20
Fixray is the execution layer, not the standard. You bring the SFG20 schedules; Fixray is where the recurring tasks get scheduled, assigned, completed, and evidenced — on any phone, with a record that never resets.
- Recurring & scheduled maintenance in the shape SFG20 describes — daily, weekly, monthly, annual cycles, each with a due date and an owner.
- Assignment to an engineer or contractor, so statutory (red) tasks are never left unallocated.
- A completion record on every job — assignee, timestamp, and a photo — building the per-asset evidence trail auditors and insurers ask for.
- Per-asset history that persists, so a recurring problem or an overdue statutory task is visible rather than lost in a chat group or a spreadsheet tab.
- Unlimited Reporters on every plan — the people who spot a fault are never a per-seat charge, so reporting can cover the whole site from day one.
Fixray supports the record-keeping SFG20-aligned maintenance requires; full SFG20 task-code mapping is on our roadmap, and the cycle-tracking, assignment, and evidence shape is in production today. It does not replace the SFG20 schedule library, and it does not replace a competent person — your responsible person still signs off.
SFG20 delivery shouldn't be priced per person
Most maintenance software is priced per user. That is an awkward shape for planned maintenance: the people who notice a fault — housekeepers, duty managers, front-of-house, a contractor on site for one afternoon — far outnumber the people who fix it, so the bill and the coverage you actually want pull in opposite directions.
Fixray never charges per seat. Reporters are unlimited on every plan, including the free Log tier, so the person who spots the propped-open fire door or the dripping tap can log it without a budget conversation happening first.
The scoped detail, so you can check it against the pricing page: Log includes 2 Managers and 2 Fixers per site; Track and Operate include unlimited Managers and Fixers. Every plan is priced per site, not per user.
MaintainX, Limble and UpKeep all price per licensed user. That means their bill scales with the size of your team, where Fixray's scales with the number of sites you run — worth pricing both ways against your own headcount.
Competitor pricing models accurate as of MaintainX July 2026; Limble and UpKeep April 2026.
SFG20 questions
- What does SFG20 stand for?
- SFG20 stands for Specifiers' Guide 20 — the twentieth in a series of specifiers' guides originally produced by the Heating and Ventilating Contractors' Association, now published and maintained by the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA). Today it is the recognised UK standard library of planned preventive maintenance task schedules.
- Is SFG20 free?
- No. SFG20 is a subscription product from BESA — you licence access to the schedule library and its software, and it is kept current as regulations change. Fixray is separate: it is a maintenance system where the SFG20-aligned tasks you plan get scheduled, assigned, completed, and evidenced. Fixray's Log tier is free forever, with unlimited Reporters and 2 Managers and 2 Fixers per site.
- How often should SFG20 maintenance be carried out?
- It depends on the task. Each SFG20 schedule sets its own frequency — some checks are daily or weekly, others monthly, quarterly, or annual — based on the asset and the risk it carries. The value of a maintenance system is turning those varied cadences into recurring jobs that come due automatically, so nothing is missed.
- Does Fixray replace SFG20?
- No. SFG20 is the standard that defines the tasks; Fixray is the execution layer that helps you deliver them — recurring scheduling, assignment, completion evidence, and a per-asset audit trail. You keep your SFG20 schedules and run the work through Fixray. Fixray makes no claim of SFG20 certification, licensing, or endorsement.
- Is SFG20 mandatory?
- Not by law — no UK statute requires you to use SFG20. It is frequently mandatory in practice for a different reason: contracts, insurers, and client specifications routinely ask for SFG20-aligned maintenance, so for many operators it is a commercial requirement even though it is not a legal one. The underlying statutory duties to maintain your assets and evidence it apply either way.
- What is the difference between SFG20 and statutory maintenance?
- Statutory maintenance is the work the law requires — the duties under legislation such as the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, and the Building Safety Act 2022. SFG20 is a specification that tells you what that work looks like task by task, and flags the statutory items in red. So statutory maintenance is the obligation; SFG20 is the widely recognised method for meeting it and showing you did.
- Do I have to pay for every person who reports a fault?
- Not with Fixray. Reporters are unlimited on every plan, including the free Log tier, so the housekeepers, duty managers, and front-of-house staff who spot the faults are never a per-seat charge. Log includes 2 Managers and 2 Fixers per site; Track and Operate include unlimited Managers and Fixers. Every plan is priced per site, not per user — which matters for planned maintenance, because the people who notice problems always outnumber the people who fix them.