Hatay's industry is concentrated in two centers: iron-steel and port line in the Gulf of İskenderun, and filter and food production around Antakya. These two sectors highlight mill scale, cellulose dust, and salt-air corrosion in terms of fire safety. ASPEK consolidates inspection, maintenance, and refilling of facilities in Hatay through southern maintenance tours from its Ankara headquarters, integrating control, maintenance, and refilling into a single file.
As Hatay is rebuilt, fire safety is being rebuilt from the ground up
The 2023 earthquakes changed Hatay's building stock twice: first by demolishing it, then by reconstructing it. Today the province has one of Turkey's newest fire system parks — and precisely for this reason, the phrase "system zero, maintenance after" is more misleading here than anywhere else. Assembly defects and commissioning shortcomings reveal themselves most in the first year; in a newly commissioned building, the first inspection is not an errand to be postponed, it is the job written first on the schedule.
The backbone of Hatay's industry is the Iskenderun Gulf. Based in Payas, Isdemiris one of Turkey's largest iron and steel facilities; around it, rolling mills and steel ancillary industry operate arrayed along the Iskenderun–Dörtyol–Payas line. Most parcels in Payas OSB are allocated to iron and iron product manufacturing. On the coast, LimakPort Iskenderun, which has handled containers since 2013, makes the gulf one of the Eastern Mediterranean's busy logistics gateways; the port hinterland and warehouses form the third link in this chain.
The picture changes on the Antakya side: Turkey's first filter factory began production in Iskenderun in 1966; today approximately two-thirds of the country's filter production comes from Hatay. In Antakya OSB this production stands alongside food and packaging. Across the province there are six OSBs: Antakya, Payas, Erzin and two Iskenderun OSBs, plus the agricultural specialization zone in Altınözü. From the mill's hydrant circuit to the filter factory's smoke detection, from storage sprinklers to gaseous suppression and pump units — everything installed for fire safety in the facility is maintained under a single contract from end to end; cameras monitoring the port area and factory surroundings (CCTV) also enter the line items of the same contract if the facility requests it.
Payas's scale deposit, Antakya's dust, and the coast's salty moisture do not fit maintenance into the same mold
| Where | Highlighted systems | What falls short in maintenance |
|---|---|---|
| Rolling mills and steel ancillary industry (Payas–Dörtyol) | Detection + hydrant and pump unit; gaseous suppression in transformer-panel rooms (factory solutionshistoric buildings energy and transformer) | Scale and oil vapor header covers the detector; cable gallery detection is forgotten |
| Filter and food production (Antakya, Iskenderun) | Detection + sprinkler + portable extinguishers | Cellulose dust blinds the optical detector; false alarm causes the detector to be shut down |
| Port hinterland and warehouses | Hydrant circuit + storage sprinklers + fire cabinets (warehouse and storage facility) | Salty air locks valves and fittings; corrosion is not visible without flow testing |
Hot mill speaks one language, filter belt another, dock storage yet another
Sprinkler under scale deposit cover
In hot production along the Payas–Dörtyol line, scale, metal dust and oil vapor are carried in the air; the thermal element of the sprinkler head wakes late under this deposit. Wiping the deposit does not restore the head; replacing the coated head is the solution. This is why in sprinkler maintenance sample heads are removed from different points along the line, and a replacement list is drawn up based on the condition of the deposit. At the same visit the test run records of the pump unit are inspected; the diesel pump's battery, fuel, and cooling circuit are tested separately.
Blinded detector in the filter factory
In sections where cellulose media is cut and oil impregnation is performed, the chamber of the optical smoke detector fills rapidly. The result is either endless false alarms or a detector that blinds as the threshold is exceeded; both lead to the same bad habit, disabling the detector. In detection maintenance, contamination levels are measured, chambers are cleaned, and if necessary, a dust-resistant type such as a heat detector is recommended for that area.
Hydrant valve locked in the warehouse
In storage facilities on the gulf coast, salty air means unopened valves and leaking fittings. The equivalent of hydrant and cabinet maintenance in this area is valve rotation: each valve is turned fully open then back, stuck spindles are freed, scale and gaskets are renewed, hoses are inspected, and the actual flow rate of the line is verified by flow testing. Corrosion that appears sound from the outside is caught only on this tour.
Hatay stop: tour plan and emergency breakdown reality
In Hatay we do not have a branch office or a service point that is your door neighbor; the vehicle that comes to your door departs from Ankara and arrives as part of a planned route heading southward. Our teams covers all of Turkey circulate on regional tours; in the Hatay leg, contracted work in Adana, Mersin and Osmaniye are written into the same schedule, Antakya industry and the Gulf line are visited in the same trip. This gives you two concrete consequences: the visit date is set weeks in advance, and the same team that knows your facility comes on each tour. In case of emergency breakdown, the first task is to request the panel photograph and fault code; diagnosis is made remotely, the vehicle does not depart before the parts list is clear. The scope details we have explained in detail on the; whether your building has weathered the earthquake or is newly commissioned You can callcall, let us start with a condition assessment.
Those entering your facility file after the visit
- Detection, suppression, hydrant, pump and emergency lighting are inspected in a single visit; a single report is issued to the facility. Tested equipment is labeled;
- inspection forms are attached to the report. Shortcomings are prioritized; critical findings are
- communicated in writing the same day without waiting for the reportA zone monitoring module connects an entire conventional detector line to the addressable loop. Critical areas are renewed with addressable devices while secondary zones continue to operate with their existing wiring. This provides significant cost advantage in capacity upgrade and renovation projects.
- At facilities where fire department inspection is approaching, deficiency completion is planned in the same contract.
- Detectors, heads and valves that need replacement are product catalog quoted in a single proposal.
To Set Up Your Maintenance Program
One contract, a solution for everything: we provide end-to-end maintenance to fire detection, gas suppression, sprinkler, hydrant, and pump units in their entirety; if you wish, camera (CCTV) system maintenance can also be added to the same contract.
If you do not have the brand, age, and last maintenance record of the existing system on hand, that is not a problem; the first step is anyway inventory and current condition assessment. Setting up an annual program without seeing what is there in the field means selling maintenance for a system that does not exist.
You can examine your system brand's product equivalents in our product catalog ; for requirements specific to your facility's use class, you can visit our sectoral solutions pages.
For survey and quotation you can or send your plan through our write or directly You can call call the number. Survey is free within Ankara; for facilities throughout Turkey, the visit plan is established jointly before contract.
Frequently Asked Questions
The sprinkler heads in our rolling mill appear sooty and discolored; do we need to replace all of them?
The decision is made by coating, not color. Heads coated with paint, mill scale or oil film cannot be salvaged by cleaning and must be replaced; light soiling is separated by sample evaluation. During maintenance, samples are taken zone by zone, replacement is limited only to lines that are genuinely coated — this significantly reduces cost compared to replacing everything at once.
Our filter factory has an oil impregnation section; which detection type is suitable for this area?
In an area where oil vapor and cellulose dust are present together, an optical point detector becomes dirty quickly. During survey, a heat detector or duct-type solution is evaluated based on the environment; existing optical detectors can be relocated to cleaner areas of the facility. The aim is not to silence alarms but to switch to the correct type and keep detection operational.
The hydrant caps in our warehouse near the port are difficult to open; will maintenance solve this?
Yes; stuck caps and seized stems are the most familiar complaint in depots on the Gulf coast. Valve service during maintenance is exactly for this: salvageable stems are operated and lubricated, irreparable parts are added to the replacement list, and water discharge from the line is measured on site. Remember this: a valve that is stiff today may not open at all on fire night; for this reason this finding is written at the top of the priority order in the report.
The system in our newly delivered building has never shown an alarm; can we postpone the first maintenance?
No, because the first year's issue is not wear but installation. Reversed wiring, assembly defects and missed scenario testing during commissioning are caught most often during this period. Treat the commissioning report as the calendar's zero point: at the first periodic inspection, that report is used as reference, the system described on paper is compared line by line with the system in the field. In Hatay's new building stock, this comparison is the strongest guarantee that the system truly provides protection.
After the earthquake our production split: some in prefabricated buildings, some running in the new building. How do we consolidate maintenance?
Scattered locations do not require splitting the contract. Panels and extinguishing agents in the prefab workshop and systems in the new building become lines within the same contract; the team visits the locations back-to-back on the same route day, accounting runs from a single customer record, each facility receives its own report. When relocation to the permanent building is completed, the commissioning of equipment removed at its new address is also planned within the same scope.