No time to relax our vigilance

Posted by Conor Logan on 12/02/20 11:00

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.

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Topics: Smoke Control, Smoke Containment, Regulations

Why use smoke control? A simple guide from Colt.

Posted by Conor Logan on 22/03/19 10:55

We are often asked the fundamental questions of what smoke control is, how it works and what the benefits are of installing it. As these are important for building owners, managers and fire safety engineers to understand, we’ve put together this post to help the responsible individuals better understand why smoke control is so vital to protecting life, stock and buildings.

So, let’s start at the beginning.

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Topics: Smoke Control, Smoke Containment, Regulations

Fire and smoke curtain webinar Q&A

Posted by Paul Compton on 13/09/16 12:00

Thanks to all those who attended my webinar last week on the design considerations when integrating smoke and fire curtains into a building. The webinar is now available as a recording, which you can watch at any time.

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Topics: Fire Containment, Smoke Containment, Webinar, Curtains

9 tips for smoke and fire curtain installations

Posted by Paul Compton on 02/08/16 12:00

Installing fire curtains and smoke curtains can be tricky to get right. Here are 9 hopefully useful tips to help you. Read More

Topics: Fire Containment, Smoke Containment, Webinar, Curtains

Fire safety through compartmentation with smoke and fire curtains

Posted by Paul Compton on 26/07/16 12:00

If you think that five breaths are all it takes to lose consciousness, you won’t be surprised to learn that as many as 70% of victims in a fire suffocate. Thick smoke can lead to disorientation and make it difficult to breathe, while the heat can cause parts of the building to collapse and start secondary fires. All this makes it difficult for people to find their way out of the building and for emergency services to make their way in to fight the fire.

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Topics: Smoke Control, Fire Containment, Smoke Containment, Curtains

Smoke and fire curtains webinar Q&A

Posted by Paul Compton on 03/11/15 12:00

I received some excellent questions during the Q&A section during the recent webinar that I presented. Here you can see my answers to these questions, slightly edited for clarity.

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Topics: Fire Containment, Smoke Containment, Webinar, Curtains

Designing for gaps in smoke curtains

Posted by Paul Compton on 13/10/15 11:30

In the UK, as with the rest of the EU, smoke curtains have to comply with the EN 12101-1 Product Standard. 

The Standard specifies the maximum amount of smoke leakage at the edges of a smoke curtain in order to ensure that any openings only allow small amounts of smoke to pass the curtain. However any smoke which passes the curtain through such a gap is likely to be mixed with the unpolluted air on the protected side of the curtain and thus is unlikely to represent a significant threat to people.

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Topics: Smoke Containment, Curtains

Smoke and fire curtains webinar Q&A

Posted by Paul Compton on 03/03/15 11:30

At our recent webinar on smoke and fire curtains, I received a large number of excellent questions during the Q&A section. Here you can see my answers to these questions, slightly edited for clarity. 

There is also a recording of the webinar available. Watching the recorded version will still enable you to claim CPD points.

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Topics: Fire Containment, Smoke Containment, Webinar, Curtains

Smoke and fire curtain control system power supplies: keep it simple!

Posted by Paul Compton on 17/02/15 11:30

Following on from our previous blog covering specifying fire curtains, we now turn to automatic controls for smoke and fire curtains.

Again we’ve been seeing lots of long-winded specifications calling for quite sophisticated control functions and features, mentioning potentially confusing features such as ‘epicyclic gearbox retarders’ which seem to be very specific to certain manufacturers rather than being an application or project requirement. These kinds of specifications may well be over complicating matters and potentially could build in reliability issues as well as increasing capital and maintenance costs unnecessarily. 

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Topics: Fire Containment, Smoke Containment, Controls, Curtains

Specifying Fire Curtains: over-complicate things at your peril!

Posted by Paul Compton on 10/02/15 11:30

Fire curtains: what they do. As an alternative to bulky fire shutters or doors, a fire curtain is designed to seal off an opening between two areas, deploying when there is a fire to prevent that fire from spreading from one area to another. It operates automatically when connected to a suitable control system and when it has been installed and commissioned correctly.

Specifying: why level of integrity should come first. With the above in mind, arguably the most important aspect of specifying a fire curtain is deciding what level of integrity is actually required to maintain compartmentation between the two areas to be protected. So, the critical consideration should be, does the fire curtain need to provide 30, 60, 120 or 180 minutes integrity?

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Topics: Fire Containment, Smoke Containment, Curtains

Colt webinar: smoke and fire curtains

Posted by Paul Compton on 03/02/15 11:30

Join me on Friday 27th Febuary 2015 at 12:30 GMT, as I present a free CPD webinar on the design considerations when integrating smoke and fire curtains into a building. 

Fire curtains seal off an area which is on fire, thereby preventing fire from moving from one area to another. Smoke curtains prevent the passage of smoke. 

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Topics: Fire Containment, Smoke Containment, Curtains

General principles of smoke control webinar Q&A

Posted by Paul Compton on 14/10/14 11:30

At our recent webinar on the general principles of smoke control, we had a large attendance with many questions asked. Here you can see my answers to these questions, slightly edited for clarity. 

There is also a recording of the webinar available. Watching the recorded version will still enable you to claim CPD points.

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Topics: Smoke Control, Smoke Containment, Webinar, Car Park Ventilation, CPD

Inverter control for car park ventilation: Good or bad idea?

Posted by Paul Compton on 03/06/14 11:30

The debate: what is it all about?

Over the last few years there has been a lot of discussion about use of inverter control for smoke extract fans. This has centred on concerns that the changing characteristics of the fan motor as it heats up may cause inverter failure. Inverter manufacturers do offer models with an “emergency mode”, where the majority of protections are disabled with the intention of allowing the motor to run to destruction.

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Topics: Smoke Control, Smoke Containment, Regulations, Controls, Car Park Ventilation

Questions and Answers from our smoke and fire curtains webinar

Posted by Paul Compton on 25/03/14 11:30

At Colt’s CPD accredited  smoke and fire curtains webinar, we received some interesting questions in the Q&A session at the end, which I would like to share.
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Topics: Fire Containment, Smoke Containment, Webinar, Smoke ventilation, CPD, Curtains

Design considerations for smoke and fire curtains

Posted by Paul Compton on 18/06/13 11:04

First of all a big thank you to those who attended my webinar last Friday on the above subject. If you missed it or would like to watch it again a recorded version is available here. Many questions were asked after the presentation and I decided to post the most interesting ones up here for everybody’s benefit.

Before I do, I confirm that the presentation I made has been CPD approved and if that you watch either the entire recorded or live version, you may request that we send you a CPD attendance certificate.

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Topics: Fire Containment, Smoke Containment, Webinar, CPD, Curtains