Testing and Maintenance of Life Safety Installations in buildings is mandatory under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order. Following the Prime Minister’s announcement at 8.30pm on 23 March 2020, it remains imperative that people living and working in the built environment are kept safe regardless of the current Covid-19 lockdown conditions. Fires still happen, emergencies do not respect crisis management.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government has issued new guidance for owners of multi-storey buildings in multiple occupancy. It brings together advice from the Independent Expert Advisory Panel in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy.

Increasingly companies are looking at sustainability, not just at the systems that they design and the impact those can have of customers’ energy use but also at the way that they run their own organisations. So it is not surprising that Colt, whose products are concerned with making the built environment more sustainable, has embarked on this journey.

If you live in East Anglia and eat in a restaurant with linen tablecloths, or if you stay in a hotel in the area, you may well be using cloths, bed linen or towels that have been laundered by Camplings Linen. Formed by a merger of two companies, it now operates under the brand Camplings in Great Yarmouth and as Swiss Laundry in Cambridge. Both locations had the same potential problem – laundry is a hot and steamy business and, while this is good for the linen, it is less good for the people who work with it.

Despite the new regulations that have been introduced or proposed following the Grenfell tragedy in 2017, this is not the time to be complacent about fire. The latest available statistics on fire in England showed that fires actually increased in the year to March 2019. In the 10 years to 2012/13 there had been a steady drop in fires every year, but since then the figure has been slowly creeping up again.

If you saw the film Rocketman, about Elton John, or watched the television adaptation of His Dark Materials, you will have seen furniture and props from specialist hire company Granger Hertzog. The company operates from a combined office, warehouse and showroom in Park Royal, London, all accommodated within a light industrial shed that is one of a number on an estate.

Following the tragic events at Grenfell Tower, the subsequent Hackitt Review into Building Regulations and the ongoing Public Inquiry, Colt is proud to establish their viewpoint on Compliance and Competence.

Smoke control is a ‘wide science’: it requires in-depth knowledge of the building layout, the technical aspects and the bewildering array of regulations in force. Each type of building has its own peculiarities and some have specific regulations and guidance on smoke control.

The number one cause of death related to fires is smoke inhalation; it is the most common cause of death at the scene of a fire. An estimated 50%-80% of fire deaths are the result of smoke inhalation injuries (rather than burns). Smoke inhalation alone (in the absence of burns) is responsible for around 40% of all fire related deaths in England. But mortality and morbidity of burn patients increases significantly when combined with smoke inhalation injury: Inhalation injury increases the risk of death from a burn injury by 30% to 40%.
Smoke inhalation injury is in fact a more complex clinical problem than burns alone, and can lead to multiple complications. Initially, a person’s airways are affected, but in a very short space of time (minutes) it can become a complex life-threatening condition, affecting every organ in the body.

There’s no fire without smoke

Problem

Controlling diesel engine exhaust emissions in enclosed spaces such as maintenance workshops is easily done with local exhaust ventilation (LEV), which can be as simple as fitting pipes to the vehicles’ exhausts while they are being serviced in order to draw the fumes outside. However, there are situations where this is not an option, for example in a warehouse where there is heavy vehicle movement inside the building, as vans and lorries come in and out for loading and unloading.

Car parks may experience a new risk with the growing prevalence of electric cars and, in particular, the likelihood that the cars will be charged in car parks. This may lead to a number of fires in their lithium ion batteries, that will pose a challenge to firefighters and to those responsible for safety in the car parks.

Strong winds and storms are becoming a more frequent feature of the autumn and winter weather patterns in the UK and external building features are being exposed to these more unpredictable elements.

However, Brise Soleil systems and typical architectural shading products are generally overlooked when considering inspections for damage. Under BS EN 1991-1-1-4 2005, it is a requirement to carry out inspection works to the fixings of external architecture to prevent wear and tear, check for vibration, divergence, and fluctuations to the system which could cause fatigue and cracking.

The potential for property damage, personal injury and even fatalities could easily become a reality. You must ensure you have a maintenance engineer you can trust. One who will check for galvanic corrosion or wear and tear and who will ensure that the installation hasn’t become loose or damaged from high winds.

An example of what can go wrong if you fail to maintain your Brise Soleil systems:

In my last blog post I wrote about the government’s proposed changes to the Building Regulations as they relate to fire and broadly welcomed them (the main concern is that the very sensible measures proposed for high-rise residential buildings should also be applied to their shorter cousins).

But principles are only as good as the way that they are applied, and in terms of fire protection, and of smoke protection in particular, the devil is certainly in the detail. If these systems are to work properly they have to be designed properly, installed properly and maintained properly. Sadly, this does not always happen. 

In the proposed changes to the building regulations discussed in our previous blog, there are two new roles connected with building safety. One is of the dutyholder, who takes responsibility for the design and construction of the systems that will make the building safe. The other is the accountable person, who is responsible for ensuring that systems are maintained properly.