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The Importance of Passive Fire Protection within your Business

November 15, 2020/in Fire Protection, Home Page news feed

The importance of passive fire protection (PFP) is vital information for any business owner. Whether your company be private or public, passive fire protection could be the difference of life and death for the people in your building and life and death for your business if it were to be found negligent of fire safety compliance.

Why is Passive Fire Protection necessary?

Passive fire protection is your building’s ‘first responder’ in the event of a fire. Generally integrated within the structure of the building, it works to contain a fire in its point of origin, prevents it spreading to other parts of the building, protects the structural integrity of the property stopping it collapsing and provides time for personnel to evacuate safely. These principles are achieved by the use of fire-resistant materials to manufacture fire walls, fire doors, fire-resistant glass, intumescent door seals and emergency lighting.

Passive fire protection, is a legal requirement, in accordance with British Standard BS 476. It must be installed in all non-private buildings, including businesses, schools, universities and hospitals by a qualified provider, with required maintenance checks completed and recorded accurately for the purpose of risk assessment procedures.

The bottom line is that if your building has not been installed with required passive fire protection, you are breaking the law. If people were to lose their lives in a fire in your building, the penalty is time in prison. This places a huge responsibility on all business owners to have the necessary fire protections installed and ensure compliance.

Passive Fire Protection and Your Business

When considering necessary costs to your business, some of the first thoughts are commonly the required materials, technology or tools, staff wages and important licenses, permits and insurances required to operate.

One that is generally not considered in the first instance is the installation and maintenance of passive fire protection to your property. Although not the most considered, this is a necessary and vital cost to any business owner and should be considered as one of the most important.

Each year people die or are seriously injured as a result of fires in non-private buildings. Besides the tragic loss of life, fire costs UK businesses millions of pounds in property damage, loss of revenue, fines, compensation and insurance costs. The cost of fire damage stands at record levels according to Association of British Insurers (ABI). The average cost in damages to a commercial building is £60,000. This cost does not include the detrimental impact to your reputation which could potentially cost you thousands more on top of that? Can you as a business owner afford not to give significant funding to fire protection systems?

This is an increasingly important issue; according to the National Fire Chiefs Council, there are still thousands of business owners that are unaware of their responsibilities when it comes to ensuring their building is compliant. Fire prevention is key to a safe environment for your employees and clients. Assessments must be undertaken, with adequate measures installed and routinely maintained by qualified professionals. Failure to do so could result in prosecution or worse; a fire destroying your business.

Who Should I Instruct to Manage the Passive Fire Protection within My Business?

To ensure maximum fire safety measures and full compliance of the law, building inspectors will recommend that the installation and maintenance of a passive fire protection system be carried out by a FIRAS accredited company. FIRAS stands for Fire Accreditation Scheme and is a certification that companies installing fire protection systems can voluntarily put themselves forward for. The FIRAS brand is recognised and respected among fire safety professionals. Instructing a FIRAS accredited company to install fire protection systems gives business owners peace of mind that the work carried out on their building is completed to the highest standard.

The Passive Fire Protection Federation warns that leaving the installation of such a vital part of fire protection to certain architects and developers that are not committed to the importance of fire safety could be, “viewed as a hindrance towards their creativity and another restrictive regulation to adhere to rather than a vital and highly important part of the process.”

Their Vice Chairman, Mike Wood was quoted saying that fire safety, “too often seen as a constraint in design, limiting flexibility, adding cost and preventing the full expression of other cherished design niceties.” There is a worry among fire safety professionals that short cuts are being taken when installing passive fire protection in order to cut costs and to not encroach too much on the overall design of the building.

The Broadsword Promise

At Broadsword, we understand the responsibility that business owners have to comply with the law, protect their building and ensure the safety of their people. This is a job that needs to be done correctly, first time. As a FIRAS accredited company, Broadsword have the knowledge and expertise to ensure fire safety compliance for all required works without the need for additional contractors. It is our promise to you to carry out work to the highest standard and the utmost professionalism. Business owners never need to worry again with the peace of mind of total fire protection.

Fire Protection within Schools

October 15, 2020/in Fire Protection, Home Page news feed, News

The impact of a large-scale fire would have devastating consequences to a school for all involved. Putting aside the unthinkable possibility of loss of life to staff and students, there are also logistical issues to consider including: dealing with the aftermath, loss of important school work, school closures, job losses and complying with investigations. Negligence in fire safety is not something a school governing body wants to contend with and so it is of the utmost importance to ensure fire protection is complied with. It is crucial that schools familiarise themselves with the information detailed below and understand the responsibility that they hold.

Fire Safety Responsibility within Schools

Fire safety within schools was previously the responsibility of the owning local authority until 2006 with the introduction of the Regulatory Reform of Fire Safety Order 2005 (also known as the Fire Safety Order). This order was introduced to standardise the fire safety requirements of all work places so as to protect people in the event of a fire in or around the premises.

One of the key changes that the order made, is that the responsibility of fire safety for schools was transferred from the local authority to a named ‘responsible person’ within the school. This tends to be either the head teacher or the school governing body; however, if any employee holding a fire safety obligation within their contract, like a maintenance manager, failed to carry out their duties, they would also be held responsible and liable for prosecution if necessary. Under the order, the responsible person is required to take general fire precautions to ensure the safety of the employees and students within the school and to ensure that the premises that they operate from is safe for all relevant persons. One of these requirements is to carry out a fire risk assessment, to identify any significant risks that can be reduced or removed and stating any other general fire precautions needed to ensure fire safety and compliance.

The government guide Fire Safety Risk Assessment – Educational Premises was published to assist the responsible person with completing the fire risk assessment along with outlining the basic fire safety measures required within schools to remain compliant.

What are the Fire Safety Requirements for Schools?

According to the Fire Safety Order, fire safety requirements can be divided into three groups: passive, active and fire safety management.

Passive fire protection compartmentalises a building through the use of fire-resistant doors, walls and floors. Breaking a building down into smaller compartments slows the spread of fire and smoke preventing early structural collapse and allowing everyone inside the premises to safely evacuate. Passive fire protection is seen as a building’s ‘first responder’ to a fire. With the correct materials it allows the necessary time for safe evacuation and for active fire protection systems to kick in and suppress the fire.
Active fire protection systems are installed to detect and suppress fires. This can range from smoke detectors to automatic fire suppression such as sprinklers that can minimise the damage caused by a fire.
Fire safety management relates to the systems the school has in place to prevent a fire from occurring and what to do in the event of a fire including: an effective fire evacuation plan, fire safety training for staff and maintenance logs of installed fire protection systems.

The Role of the Responsible Person

As the designated responsible person for the school premises, it is their job to ensure that both the active and passive fire systems are installed and well maintained within the building. Building inspectors and fire safety experts will recommend that the work is carried out by a FIRAS accredited company. A company holding the FIRAS certification will have the knowledge and expertise to ensure that the work is not only done to the highest standards but in full compliance of the law which guarantees the safety of your employees and students.

In terms of fire safety management, it is the duty of the responsible person to prepare an evacuation plan, appoint fire marshals to assist with the evacuation and to arrange fire drills to take place frequently so the plan is rehearsed. Added consideration must be given to boarding schools where students may be asleep when a fire breaks out as well as evacuating students with reduced mobility.

In addition to an evacuation plan all schools must have a fire safety policy that includes the following details:

An outline of the legislation and the guidance available
A statement of intent regarding fire safety
The name of the responsible person
Policy for planned fire safety arrangements including an outline of fire protection systems
Fire Safety induction for new employees
The means for summoning the fire services
Notes for the management of electrical equipment in the event of a fire
A visitor book for signing in and out

Passive Fire Protection in Residential Buildings

April 17, 2020/in Home Page news feed, News

Passive fire protection has been implemented since the 17^th century. During the Great Fire of London, in 1666, it was proved that the wooden construction of the surrounding buildings had exacerbated the blaze contributing to the destruction of 13,200 houses, 87 churches, 52 livery company halls and obliterating the city’s infrastructure.

In response to this, King Charles II instructed for all buildings to be made of stone and for the roads to be widened. In addition to this, the government introduced the 1667 London Building Act, which, among its laws, stipulated that buildings be constructed with masonry to resist the break out of fire and prevent the spread of it. It was thought that passive fire protection was created at this time.

Whilst building regulations have improved significantly since the 17^th century, there is still more work to be done to ensure that correct modern standards are correctly implemented. According to Home Office statistics, the number of fires that the Fire Services have to attend and the number of deaths that are caused by fire related incidents are increasing.

The Importance of Passive Fire Protection

Passive fire protection is built into the walls and floors of buildings to separate them into areas of manageable risk. Each area is able to prevent the spread of the fire to other areas. The idea is that the fire is contained long enough in one of these areas for occupants to evacuate from the building and for the fire brigade to fight the fire.

Most products of passive fire protection resist the fire instead of fight it. Fire resistance is achieved through constructions such as columns, walls, floors and doors. Each of these constructions will be able to resist fires in one of three ways:

resist structural collapse
resist heat conduction
resist the passage of smoke and noxious gases

All floors in a building must have components that resist fires in all three ways.

Passive Fire Protection in High Rise Residential Buildings

In the event of a fire, high rise buildings are designed to provide fire resistance that ensures the prevention of the fire spreading from where it originated. This can only be relied upon if the fire resistant materials were compliant with building regulations at the time of construction and they have been properly maintained and managed throughout their lifetime.

Due to the reliance of a high-rise building’s passive fire protection, residents are asked to stay put in the event of a fire breaking out. This is thought to be the safest option for them as the alternative may see residents leave their place of safety. Unfortunately, as we know in the recent events of Grenfell, the stay put method can only be relied upon if the appropriate passive fire protection is installed. If it isn’t, it can prove fatal as it did that day when 71 people tragically lost their lives.

Passive Fire Protection and the Law

Building owners who own property that do not pass regulations are now able to be prosecuted under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 with some sentences going as far as being custodial. Since this came to pass, more emphasis has been placed on buildings being compliant.

Under the Buildings Regulations of England and Wales, contractors have the responsibility of handing over appropriate fire safety information to a ‘responsible person’ on completion of the building or extension of the building and it first being occupied.

Furthermore, the fire safety information given should include all design measures in appropriate detail and accurate enough so the ‘responsible person’ understands what they need to do to maintain the building safely. Building work should have been completed with adequate and proper materials sufficient for their intended use.

Despite the specific detail that these regulations go into, it is very common for built in passive fire materials, to not be compliant.

Overcoming Non-Compliance

Currently, the construction of a residential building requires the input and expertise of many fields – from architects to fire engineers to contractors. Throughout the process, the building undergoes many inspections to ensure compliance. In her interim report into the Grenfell fire, Dame Judith Hackitt acknowledged that it is therefore difficult to focus the blame for non compliance on one specific area.

She recommended in her report that there is a process change and that duty holders be tasked with ensuring compliance to a new body made up of the Health and Safety Executive, Local Authority and Fire and Rescue Professionals. This new body would be called the Joint Competent Body.

If this were adopted and implemented, it would ensure not only that more residential buildings were constructed compliantly but be able to sanction duty holders if they weren’t.

Further Incentive for Getting Things Right

Passive fire protection items that are condemned at handover or any time after fall on the responsibility of the construction company to correct. Items that are enclosed within the building can be extremely costly to repair possibly resulting in the loss of millions of pounds. This would undoubtedly bring its own financial implications.

Improvements

Small changes to attitudes and processes could reap significant improvements in passive fire protection compliance.

It is important for the sake of a building’s fire compartmentalisation that drawings are understood accurately and that architects are encouraged to be more specific of what design and materials are used.

Principal contractors should be discouraged from splitting passive fire protection into different sub-contracted packages. This method could lead to a lack of focus and could result in non-compliance.

How does Passive Fire Protection work?

February 5, 2020/in Commercial, Home Page news feed, News

Passive fire protection (PFP) is an essential component of structural fire protection and fire safety in a building. PFP attempts to contain a fire or prevent the fire from spreading to other parts of the building by the use of fire-resistant walls, floors and doors. A fire protection system for any building will have the following:

Active Fire Protection – Manual or automatic fire detection or suppression
Passive Fire Protection – Compartmentalising the building with fire resistance walls and floors. Organising the building into smaller fire compartments prevents or slows the spread of fire from its origin to other spaces in the building. This will limit the potential damage to the building and it gives the building occupants time to initiate their emergency evacuation drill and for them to get to safety.
Fire Prevention – Minimising potential situations that a fire could break out and educating the occupants of the building on fire safety systems and how they should be maintained and emergency procedures including how to notify fire service response and emergency evacuation.

Any surface that is used for fire resistance is required to have a fire rating. Surfaces are rated by being fire tested where surfaces are exposed to temperatures upwards of 1100°C. Many of these tests are undertaken to test the survivability of the surfaces under realistic conditions.

A lot of Passive Fire Protection systems use many different materials in the design and construction of their systems. Most common endothermic building materials include calcium silicate board, concrete and gypsum wallboard. During fire testing, concrete slabs have been known to emit water as they boil and gypsum commonly loses all its strength when exposed to fire. The use of endothermic materials is established and proven to be sound engineering practice. The chemically bound water inside these materials sublimes. During this process, the unexposed side cannot exceed the boiling point of water. Once the hydrates are spent, the temperature on the unexposed side of an endothermic fire barrier tends to rise rapidly. Too much water can be a problem, however. Concrete slabs that are too wet, will literally explode in a fire, which is why test laboratories insist on measuring water content of concrete and mortar in fire test specimens, before running any fire tests.

PFP measures also include the use of intumescent (a substance that swells under heat exposure) or ablative materials. Any of these surfaces on their own would not be effective against exposure to fire and so need to be organised into a highly effective system that is subject to rigorous testing at multiple times.

Passive Fire Protection is designed to contain the fire in its place of origin, preventing the spread of fire and smoke for a limited amount of time. Firestops, fire walls and fire doors undergo the above-mentioned fire testing and fire resistance is usually determined in how many hours these particularly materials can contain the fire for. Their certification will provide the limitations that are present with these materials.

Unlike Active Fire Protection, Passive Fire Protection does not usually involve any form of activation or degree of motion with the exception of fire dampers and fire door closers which must move, open and shut in order to function as well as all intumescent products which rely on swelling to operate effectively.

There are mainly two types of Passive Fire Protection; intumescent and vermiculite. With vermiculite protection, the structural steel members are covered in a thick layer of hydrous phyllosilicate mineral that undergoes significant expansion when heated. This is a cheaper option to the intumescent materials but is not aesthetically pleasing. Furthermore, if the environment is corrosive, then the vermiculite is not advisable as there is a possibility of water seeping into it and will make it difficult to monitor corrosion. Intumescent fire protection is a layer of paint with a coating system along the structural steel members. The thickness of this coating depends on the steel section used. Intumescent coating is relatively low in thickness which makes it more pleasing to the eye and produces a nice finish with an anti-corrosive nature.

In the event of a fire in a building, the steel structure will eventually collapse once the steel hits its critical core temperature of around 550°C. Passive fire protection will delay this by creating a layer between the steel and the fire. This can potentially add another 2 hours to the integrity of the structure saving lives and damage to property inside the building.

If you require a competent fully accredited fire protection company, you have just found it! Broadsword Fire Protection LTD welcomes your enquiries.