Webinar: How a Responsible Person selects fire compartmentation specialists

Adam Clarke  00:00

All right. Well, good morning, and welcome to the Praxis42 webinar on how a responsible person selects competent fire compartmentation specialists. I’m Adam Clarke from Praxis42 and today I’m joined by Damian Ward from checkmate fire solutions. Webinars are designed to share thoughts and best practice examples.

Your mic will be muted, but there are buttons at the bottom of your screen where you can ask questions, which will be addressed at the end of the Q&A session. If you’ve got any questions that you’d like us to run through, please get those in as soon as possible. And any questions that we don’t have time to answer today will be answered and put up on our resources page.

Following today’s session, we will send out a CPD certificate to those who have attended the whole event, a recorded version of today’s webinar, and relevant downloads, which may be of interest. I’d like to welcome our guest speaker for today, Damian Ward. Damian has over 15 years technical experience working extensively within the passive fire protection industry. Thank you. And over to you, Damien.

01:14

Thanks, Adam. Right, and I shall see if I can.

01:24

Yes, I’m just going to share my screen. Everyone’s just bear with me.

01:38

Okay. Good morning, everybody. As Adam said, my name is Damian Ward. I’m the head of technical for CheckMate fire solutions, and very pleased to be here to give you sort of a brief overview on competence, and compartmentation, and sort of the pros and cons and benefits of all of it. I think probably to give you a flavour of what to expect.

Today, I’m going to try and discuss a little bit about penetration seals and compartmentation in terms of the works itself, what to look out for what to expect, and then move into maybe the inspection aspects of compartmentation.

It seems to be something that’s more and more requested these days, I’ll then look at fire doors, some of the typical issues, some of the common install defects, and then about inspections and remediation, which includes repairs to doors, and when a door may need to be replaced.

So, I’ll try and give you sort of a flavour of it all. We’ll talk about some of the challenges that we as an industry are facing, and then more about competence and what’s around there in terms of gaining competence and how to prove it as well. So that’s sort of what to expect.

Just a little bit about checkmate fire solution. So, if you’ve not heard of us before, we’re nationwide specialists, pacifier protection contractors, we’ve got five sort of hubs throughout England, our head offices, and Yorkshire and our size hub office is in Harlow, in Essex.

In terms of number of years, we’ve been around a while now 32 years plus, so we, you know, quite a few years’ experience in terms of our scale. So, I mean, on any given day, we could be on 100 Plus sites throughout England, which, you know, has its operational challenges. But that’s sort of day to day, the kind of numbers that we’re looking at, in terms of what we do. I mean, we’re pacifier protection, but really, it’s inspections of compartmentation, and fire doors. It’s installation of fire stopping products. It’s door remediation, which as I mentioned earlier, is all is all about repairing existing fire doors, getting that extra bit of life out of them. And then door replacements which will be installation of brand-new door sets. That’s sort of what we do day to day, as a business, in terms of what allows us to do that or how do we prove we can do this correctly?

Well, first and foremost health and safety. We have a number of the construction related health and safety accreditations which I don’t think you can operate without these days, you have to prove what you can do is safe. In terms of fire protection, we are a third-party accredited contractor, we hold sort of the three main UK ones, B and BM Trada. Fire us and Bre which operate the loss prevention certification board.

So hopefully those are sort of some of the brands that you might recognise, if you’ve had fire protection works carried out in some of your premises previously. Goes without saying quality security of our clients are interested in data protection and ensuring that the information that’s held within their buildings is obviously secure. And then it’s about The Trade Association. So, the main one really, for us as a pacifier protection specialist is ESFP. It’s a fantastic trade association, they get together and their technical groups, they issue technical guidance notes, and colour books.

So, if that’s a new association to you, then it’s well worth a visit on their website. Lots of their information is free at the moment to download. And I think if, if the slides go out today, I think that’s definitely one you should look at and see have referenced one or two other documents throughout the presentation.

So, let’s get straight into it. firestopping things to look out for. There’s, there’s a lot of I suppose we can only be general today. But in terms of when we’re looking at fire stop, and you’ve got combustible services, which should have some will refer to as a closing device that can come in many forms, whether it’s a colour, a rap, sometimes referred to as strap, or the use of high pressure, or high-pressure expansion mastic, which is usually black or grey.

Some of the common things that we find, particularly with combustible pipes, is that people start to use the HP as more of a decoration. And you can see in the top right picture, it seems to be painted on the front of the coated bat, which is not going to do anything. The real, the real way to know if that’s going to work is it’s all about the annular depth within and around the penetration service.

So, you’re typically looking for about 20 to 25 mil, annular, and full depth of that, that material or that high pressure, mastic needs to be in there so that when involved in a fire, it will expand, and it will close the gap left by the combustible pipe.

Another sort of common thing that isn’t always apparent, without more of an intrusive check, is the joints within the fire stop and bat. So, the bottom left picture is what’s referred to in industry as a dry bat joint, whereby the integrity of the finished seal is not there, because you haven’t bonded and created that join.

What you’re really looking for is that top left picture where you can see a nice cotton of acrylic mastic which is almost used as the glue that holds it all together. It’s funny in a lot of our training that we do internally, we talk about the Great British Bake Off and the fact that what you want to do is try and get a nice, a nice coating between the bat so that Paul and Prue would be happy. And that’s really what you’re looking for.

Adam Clarke  07:29

With no soggy bottom.

07:31

No soggy bottom, definitely not. Now, it’s not water resistant, what we’re looking for is fire resistance. But I mean, it’s funny because you know, you speak to different manufacturers. And really, the guidance will be that you’ll coat one side of the joint annual bonded together and that should hold. And in theory, it should in reality or in confined spaces, you’re in difficult areas to access a lot of the time, it just needs that little bit more.

So, both sides bonded for us, we seem to find it works best, it’s pretty much foolproof. So, in terms of what you’re looking for, for competence on site is the people are actually going out a little bit more than the minimum really, to make sure that it all sticks together.Very typical on the left there as well. You can see some insulated pipes. In the fire scenario, the insulation would melt. If that was a steel pipe, for example going through, you need that high pressure mastic to take up the void left by the insulation which would be around the pipe. It’s quite good to hear this was an inspection and you can see that on the face of it. It looks like there’s plenty of graphite mastic or high-pressure mastic there. But, when you start to peel it back, you can see the sort of on the left side bottom two pictures. It’s again at this almost looks like it’s been brushed on.

So yeah, areas that you really need to be honed in and looking on in terms of the difference between getting it right and getting it wrong. In reality, it looks good. And usually in fire protection. If it looks good, it’s right. But what we’re finding is, it’s not always the case, just because it simply looks good. In terms of what to look out for, you know, manufacturers have got different details. This is more of an example really, when you’re doing a visual inspection, if you look at the right-hand picture, you can see a 110 SVP going through a wall. What you can see is this is sort of partially done. So, the finished detail is that the wrap or the expansion element of the seal is within the depth of the wall. So, you can see it when the when the firestopping has finished because it’s been covered over by an acrylic mastic so on the face of it, it looks like it’s actually not going to work because you can’t physically see that intumescent wrap other manufacturers protrude it so you can see on the left you can see sometimes it’s slightly protruded. Sometimes it’s flushed to the bat. And in other cases, you can’t see it at all.

So it’s very important from an inspection point of view that you’re not if you can be try not to be generalistic so if you know the manufacturer, you should know exactly how that system goes together. And you should know that it may need an invasive element to prove or disprove what’s in place and in situ. Some of the challenges that we face so I mean, as a, as a business who installs this for a living time and time again, you’ll come to buildings and you’ll see services arranged in a way in which it’s, it makes it quite difficult to firestopping to compliance standard.

This is a good example, cable bundles, a lot of manufacturers details will allow bundle diameters of up to 100, for example, that can be quite easily fire stop. But in scenarios where there’s high density of cables, we’ve got to make a client aware the responsible person aware that what’s already here in terms of services can’t be fire stopped. We can go back to the manufacturer, of course, which is usually the standard route, we’ll you’ll ask them is there any details which are engineered judgments, ad hoc details, which will cover that scenario, most cases, there wouldn’t be for something like this. So, the only option is a non-compliant detail. But you know, from us, we’re usually there too late, we’re too late for the party, because all the services have been installed by the time we get there.

If we were to wind back to the to the day that these cables were installed, then you know, you can imagine the guys come to run some cables. He’s vetted as many as he could possibly fit through this opening, because it’s the easiest route to the data room or to the server room. He’s then taken pictures of his work made sure his workspace is clean and tidy. And then he’s gone left sites, clients been updated. Everything’s done, everything’s working superfast, internet, broadband, whatever the case may be. He’ll send his pictures to his boss, boss. Oh, look at it delighted. It goes straight on LinkedIn. Of course it does. Because actually, it looks really, really good, then you’ll get the comments, because if it’s on LinkedIn, it’s right. I have to say this is workmanship of the highest standard Bravo.

And, he has done a pretty good job of putting all those cables in, it looks tidy. But then when we rock up a few weeks later, we’ve got this scenario. So, in one hand, you’ve got a very happy client, because he’s got everything working in terms of his services. Then on the other hand, the parole fire stopper comes on. He’s, he’s, he’s sort of on the backfoot before you even start. And a lot of the time, I think our industry gets a bad name, because we’re always too late to the party, where they’re at a point where the building is, it’s so involved to get to get it stripped back to put it the way it should be, it becomes a challenge and you’re constantly trying to work with the client to come around solutions. And that’s just on simple things like cables.

If you look at potential weak spots, usually the left-hand side of the picture you can see there was a fire stop installed. But then as time goes by as a building starts to get used as a building starts to get upgraded, and refurb you’ll find these extra cables start cropping up and popping in. Easy there you can see two conduits in pass through metal conduit, you can see additional cables being passed through, because let’s face it, the easiest path through compartment walls is usually through the fire stop. And so and it can be quite difficult for the responsible person to get to get to grips with how much damage is getting calls to their compartmentation, which was originally in a good place. Without that monitoring and surveillance of a building for one better word.

Contractors will come and go, and the health of that building will start to deteriorate because there’s holes appearing all over the place, you may have leaks, etc. And then on the right you’ve got the reverse side of the finished fire stop and seal. So, you know you can walk through some corridors, you can pop some ceiling tiles, you’ll have a look at some of the fire stops as they’re installed on the wall. But actually if you can’t get to the reverse side and double check symmetry and the fact that it not only is it finished from one face, but it’s actually finished from the reverse fire could attack either side.

That one was absolutely impeccable. From the front face. Everything was buttered up, the mastic looked beyond place nicely coated it was faultless. But when you stick your head around the other side of the wall and have a look, you’ve got some pretty big gaps. You’ve got some pretty I’d say it’s poor workmanship and sloppiness that is left out in the state that it’s in. There’s no way you could guarantee in a fire scenario that that would achieve what it was intended to do.

So, there’s lots of Gremlins within fire stopping that you need to be careful of. A lot of it can be visually checked as in these pictures here. Some of it needs a little bit more in depth. But the benefit of having a process in place within your building to manage the fire protection, either during or after it’s been installed is key to you protecting what you’ve got. So, you’ve obviously spent money to try and get a building up to a standard, you really have to protect it. As much as it’s there to protect the building, you’ve got to protect the fire protection and the compartmentation. Within that building, as well. The most obvious is probably fire doors, when you look at fire doors, you’ve got your walk through them all the time, throughout the building. Typically, what we find a failure point is leaf gaps.

It’s probably important to note the sort of consistency. So, you may have an inspection carried out, which gives us better results, you may then have a second inspection six months later or annually carried out, they could be quite different, even though the door has had minimum use, particularly in terms of leaf gap.

So, it’s important to set criteria, in fact, criteria across the board, really, but in terms of leaf gaps, there’s some pretty good spots to start picking in terms of leaf gap adjustments. And they’re useful because you can double check results as well.

So, for example, that single leaf, if you were to take the two red dots towards the bottom of the door, well, we know that we’re allowed a three mil plus one tolerance, therefore the maximum that gap can be is eight millimetres if we were to add both the hinge side and the leading-edge side together. But what happens if one is three millimetres, and one is six millimetres?

Well, no matter how that leaf fits within that frame, you’re always going to have one side outside of the expected standard. So, we know that that would be a leaf and frame adjustment because the jams have spread, and they need to be adjusted back into tolerance. So, anything up to eight mil, across two sets of points will give you a leaf only.

So, we know that a slight adjustment of the leaf will bring the gaps back in anything over nine mil on a single leaf, we know that we need a bit more work, it’ll be the leaf and some sort of remediation to the frame as well. Like the double leaf, so rather than it being nine mil, it will be 13 mil and more because you’ve got an additional set of gaps to take account of. But those are the things that sort of help when it comes to consistency and making sure that you’re looking after your fire doors as much as anything else.

It seems very common as well to have QR codes these days, asset tagging your fire doors, so that when you do have repeat inspections, you’ve got a point of reference, you know the history of that door, you know that, for example, this door tends to have an issue with damage. Time and time again, the edges are getting damaged. So therefore, maybe we need to look at why. Okay, damage is going to happen. But why is it always this door? And why is it always that it’s getting damaged to the LEED niche that might put in place for you.

This could be a tenant ID building and there’s a few residents that are always walloping through with trolleys. And maybe actually focus on the residents that are causing the damage so that you’re not constantly replacing what you’ve got. So, asset tagging and QR codes can help give you that sort of trend analysis over a few years. But without that you’re sort of always on the backfoot because you’re just reactively trying to keep the fire door in a good state of repair. In terms of what can go wrong with a fire door, there’s so many elements to make a fire door that it is sort of endless in that respect. But you’ve got the leaf gaps, you’ve got the intumescent and combined smoke seals, threshold gaps, which are always a challenge because a lot of the time the gaps are excessive not because of how the door was fitted, but it’s because how the floor was laid originally. It might be that you’ve had new floor coverings which can either increase or decrease the level of the floor.

You’ve got some hinge pads, which should be behind certain specifications a fire door you’ve got DDA Compliance, clear opening what’s to contend with along with opening and closing forces, Vision panels, quite a common one really. And in some of the older buildings, there’s a lot of these vision panels, they don’t have what you’d expect the intumescent gaskets around the glazing between the glazing and the bieden.

So, it can really increase the cost of remediating doors, leaf alignments, so this is slightly different to leaf gaps leaf alignment is how nicely that leaf sets within the frame or if it’s a double door, how neatly they fit together. There was some guidance a few years ago where you were allowed sort of up to one mil protrusion of the leaf from the frame along the head and up to three mil along the base of the door. But earlier this year that was changed and now sort of the industry standard is no more than one mil protrusion from anywhere on the frame.

So, it’s tightened up in terms of the allowance, but it should really mean that more of them can be repaired. It doesn’t mean you’re gonna have more failures, but of those failures, more should be so repairable rather than relating to a replacement error transfer. Are grills although you don’t see them in a lot of doors, a lot of the time when they have been installed, it’s been retrospectively.

So, a good example of that one as you can see that there’s some grill covers installed. But you can obviously see that someone’s Jigsaw the door out any sort of alterations to a fire door. To do with apertures such as letter plates by holes, air transfer grills, after it’s left the factory is, is really a big no no in industry at the moment, there’s only very few licensed fire door converters that can undertake that kind of work.

I think these are probably some of the things that several years ago, were very seldom asked for as part of a door inspection. But nowadays, it seems to be almost the norm that a percentage or a full intrusive inspection on fire door is required. Typically, you’ll have architraves around the door set. And when removed, you can tell if its properly fire stopped. I’ve sort of taken a few snippets from some global assessments, hopefully you know what a global assessment is. But it’s basically the different applications for a specific product or fire door.

So, it will tell you the maximum heights and widths, it’ll tell you the different methods of fire stop and that specific door based on its template at test evidence and assessment. And this is quite typical of the diagrams that you’ll see. It will tell you the types of wall construction, the frame fixings whether or not it’s allowed to have architraves. But then it will tell you about, you can look at the middle section gaps up to 20 mil filled with PU form products must be tested for this application to the relevant standards. And then the joints must be covered with architraves. So, you can sort of see that if you look at the picture, it’s a nice solid block of form. If you look at reality, you can see that, there’s gaps all over the place. And it’s not representative of what the assessment is trying to tell you.

There are other options, so this is the exact same global assessment to give you a flavour. So, PU foam has been considered as part of the assessment. But on other gap sizes, it could be acrylic intumescent mastic kept on either side of the frame. In some cases, you’ll have a full sell of rock wool or stone wills, mostly known as and then water without architraves again, so there’s usually a few different options within a single product that you can use to correctly fire stop around the perimeter. But what happens when you’re dealing with a building where you don’t have this global assessment, you don’t know who the manufacturer of the doors are, then really none of these, none of these specific rules apply. But there is for those who do a lot of inspections probably aware of BSA 214.

There’s sort of a snippet of some of the tables towards the back of the document. And it gives you generic options based on it being a small control door or fire only. And it’ll tell you what the gaps are and what the different protection methods are there for you. And those could be applied to the notional type doors we haven’t got that assurance of where the products come from. So it can be quite helpful particularly in the older buildings. But none of this really makes sense if the doors aren’t installed rightly in the first place.

You see all sorts of things when you’re doing inspections. This is sort of the left side is a razor cupboard that’s been fitted in a wall it’s shot off at a funny angle common towards the razor. It’s just bad workmanship from the wall building whoever picked it up, it’s just been a bit lazy and not finished it you’ve then got the frame installed because of the angle it’s just been botched. And there’s meant to be a panel above which has just been fixed with a wooden panel so there’s all sorts of stuff going on there.

It really needs everything removed the wall finishing properly the door that doorframe could go back, and the leaf could go back, and it just needs the wall as the issue here. Not so much the door not too sure why but it’s very common to see service penetrations through the head of a door there’s no way you’ll have test evidence to cover that type of detail on site.

So usually that all needs to get taken out and get rerouted. Not a nice conversation to have with the clients because they’re not aware of this needing to be done. You can see the the bottom right picture not sure how someone’s done this, but they’ve managed to cognize circular hole in some Georgian wire and pass a heat pipe through. Well done I don’t know how you do it but not very well when it comes to fire protection of it.

That compartment there are some quite some useful bits of information, again, within the global assessment, which is, which is good when you’re trying to determine what sort of fire door you’ve got. A lot of the global assessments are quite generic across the board. So softwood, hardwood, MDF, minimum section size is quite useful to know.

So that you’ve got a little bit of an idea of what you’re dealing with, when you’re looking at door frames, slightly different when it comes to the door leaf itself that’s more specific, that gives you the minimum dimensions, you can see some of the leaf gaps are quite bad on that door. And there’s actually daylight popping through the opposite side, which is a clear sign that there’s some issues with the workmanship when that doors gone in. Again, it’s probably not picked up an awful lot on inspections.

But I think when you look at the picture now and it’s a close up, it’s quite obvious, but where you’ve got the keep on a double leaf door, or you’ve got the flush bolt, the intumescent in particular, not necessarily the smoke seal of the strip, but the angemessen needs to carry on up the side of the flush bolts of the keep, because that’s quite a weak spot in terms of its location on the door. And if you don’t have that HSMs in there, then you really have no protection to that item of ironmongery.

So, it’s worth noting it’s kind of a lazy way to add strips to the door, or if they’ve been replaced on the person replacing them isn’t sure. And again, it causes an issue. I think we mentioned threshold gaps. That floor is well out of the square. And it’s probably an interesting question, where does the responsibilities lie? If you fit a door set that’s got all the good old test evidence that you’re looking for. It’s got all the global assessments have been fitted correctly. But all the floors are at a level. Our fire protection contractor is expected to relay floors as part of a door install? Or is the building owner slash FM responsible for ensuring that the areas are prepared sufficiently for a door set to be installed?

It’s interesting and interesting to know your thoughts. In terms of maintenance, obviously, once you’ve had a building upgraded or remediated, what’s the cost of it? This comes from the Property Services Agency, which talks about the initial cost. And then the ongoing cost of maintenance, if you don’t maintain those assets, this is particular to fire doors was quite interested in how big these costs can ramp up afterwards.

So, it’s about getting the job done right. And then what I mentioned earlier, protecting that asset going forward. A lot of this fits nicely into the case for third party accreditation. It is what we’ve got. It’s there to help protect the end user that the services that they’re using are up to the right standard. These are some of the snippets from approved document B it talks about responsibilities for compliance, materials and workmanship, an independent third party certification. It’s not a requirement by law, but it is a recommendation.

But what’s the point? What do you get for it? Well, there are many benefits, a lot of it talks about a routine QA process that proves that the work that’s been done is carried out to the right standard, that can be a blended combination of visual inspections that can be intrusive inspections of completed work to check that what we’ve promised to deliver is being done. And this is the same for all pacifier protection contractors throughout the UK, they all have to do it if they’re part of the third-party certification scheme.

So, it is becoming the norm everyone is doing it, everyone can prove that what we’ve done is in line with a manufacturer’s detail or a test of detail or an engineered solution, or whatever that case may be. So, there is that peace of mind that what you’re paying for is going to be right from the outset. Most of the time, when you’re trying to secure the services of a contractor, you need to start asking for what actual accreditation they have got, it’s all very fine to ask for a third-party accredited contractor.

But if you want them to work on doors, you need to make sure that that certificate covers doors. And it isn’t just penetration seals or linear gap. Seal accreditation because the two don’t work. If you’re working for doors, it needs to be specific for doors, if it’s on penetration seals, or if it’s on intumescent coatings, reactive coat and sprayed coatings, whatever that might be you need to make sure the expertise is in that area.

The benefit is you will get at the end with a certificate of conformity This is common in in fire safety. Really, when it comes to work. So active companies do it. So do passive companies. And what’s most important is that it tells you the scope of the work so you’ve got it but it also tells you what’s excluded. Because I think anyone sort of joining us today will hopefully be aware that not every building is compliant. There’s always things that are outside of the usual boxes.

So, it’s very cool. challenging to apply standard details to every single scenario. And in some cases, it is agreed that there will be no standard detailed, therefore, it’s an exclusion. So, it’s more important to know about the exclusions more than anything, because those are your areas of risk. Those are the ones that need to be considered as part of a robust fire risk assessment and ongoing safety for that building. All of it obviously underpins the legal requirement to have a safe building. There’s lots of articles within this, hopefully, you’ll be aware of most of them.

I think the areas that are common quite key now is maintenance article 17, putting in place a provision for fire safety, for maintenance of your fire safety provisions. And that can be quite a challenge. You know, we speak to clients who’ve got literally hundreds of buildings throughout the UK, and they’re trying to manage it from one point very, very difficult to manage and maintain and protect those assets going forward.

So, it is it is a challenge now. Interesting. I read this quite a few months ago about getting it right Initiative and the cost of errors. This is sort of the whole sector in the UK but talks about 5% of the project value for avoidable errors in construction. And then if you talk about the ones that nobody records and nobody measures sort of the unmeasured, it almost doubles to 10 plus percent, which is quite a quite a big fee when really when you look at it across the sector, so the cost of getting things wrong. You know, it’s massive, really, it’s all about now within our industry is getting it right first time and being able to prove that we can get it right. And that can only be done through competency. competency is is a big thing at the moment in industry. Everyone’s trying to prove it.

But you know, myself included, if you’re asking me what competence mean? It’s a difficult one to answer. I think everyone has a view on competence. For me, for me sometimes is the opposite. It competence should be knowing what you can’t do. And knowing the limits of your ability rather than saying, Yeah, we can do everything, because I’m competent in this.

So therefore, everything’s not a problem, you’ve got to be aware of your limitations. At the moment, we’ve obviously got the Hackett report it’s been around for a while. We’ve also got a new code from BSI called psi Flex 8670. This is really the start of defining competence. In construction. And it’s a code of practice, there will be further versions, I think there’s a part one or part two, possibly a part three, common to this suite of standards, which we’ll be looking at key roles like principal designer, principle, contractor, and architects as well.

So, within those standards, though, there will be some frameworks and outlines on how you can deem competencies. But the main thing is, is the new acronym scab, so skills, knowledge, experience, and behaviours. And I think now, if we’re looking at the individual, it’s about proven that their skills, knowledge, and experience is correct. And then the behaviours are more about how the company behaves. So that together, that is how you’ll be proven competence going forward.

There are now, still other ways to prove that. So, there is a code of practice, there is a best practice document that I’ll show you in a few slides’ time. But it’s starting to look at accredited third-party level one or level two qualifications for individuals, the CSCs card schemes, the CPDs and proven that people have a working knowledge of what they’re doing, which is all it’s all good, really. It’s what we need. But to put that into practice is slightly different.

So, we’ve got each company will be working on ways to prove it. But the knowledge and the experiences only. It’s only evidence by having evidence to prove that you’ve done it. So, you need to be working on how you can work towards that end goal of being competent.

Obviously, we’ve got best practice documents, I’ve just picked a selection of ones here. For those that may or may not be aware, but the firestopping observers penetrations is quite you know, it’s a decent document a lot of time and effort has gone into it. But it talks about signing off works and sort of appropriate levels for that and the ASAP have launched a course for level three, fire protect pacifier protection, and that is quoted within this best practice document as being a route to be able to sign off work. So that should cover inspections as much as and work so there is progress being made.

Where do we start with best practice? To difficult one, I think we should always start with better practice. First, let’s get better at what we’re doing. We’ve got the best practice to aim for and we just need as an industry to be better at the moment. I’ve put this specification in the bottom rate, it was one that we found on a drone that we were sent into the office and one of the technical managers sent it to me and said, I just can’t believe how wrong this could be.

And this is sort of showing the limits of knowing how competent you are talks about a one-hour fire rated particle board, manufactured from a manufacturer’s name, which sounds like the material by another manufacturer or similar to box around the column. But it needs to be protected with a fire door, mastic tested to a standard is just all kinds of wrong, incorrect specification if it couldn’t be more wrong. In terms of quality, I mean, I think we’ve touched on a lot of this already.

But it’s about getting the right product, having the right process to prove that the products are installed in the right way. And the process has got to be underpinned by the people that are used to people having got to ultimately be competent to do what they’re doing. And ultimately know when they’re not competent inspections in terms of the ASAP these are the levels that they’re looking for.

So, the AFA are producing this course level three certificate and pacifier protection, that is a good, really good level to be trained to aim for in terms of anyone out there who’s trying to do inspections or trying to sign off works and doing quality controls because it covers the real broadness of fire protection.

You know, this is a pretty standard layout of a building that you’ll find within a fire strategy talks about the different wall constructions, it’ll tell you what the 30 Minute walls are the 60 Minute walls, and all of this comes from having a working knowledge of approved document B, the S double NINE double NINE. And when you’re trying to do an inspection, really, you’ve got to have that awareness. Because you may walk into a building, you might find that there’s cross corridor door messing.

Therefore, you’ll recommend that a fire door needs to be installed to split a travel distance, for example. But you’ll then be affecting the strategy which may or may not have picked up the unique smoke detectors either side of a fire door within a within a corridor, it was that narrow affects the act of measures within the building. So, there’s a balance to be had. And I think when we talk about competency, you’ve got to have that more all-around knowledge, these days. Inspections, the criterion for inspections is endless.

You can go to the enth degree to try and get the information you need for the bill. But really, what’s important is that you’re consistent. And I talked about it about even just measuring leaf gaps earlier, there are ideal places to take those measurements. But, what’s good for, you know, as an accredited contractor, you need to have a set defined list. But that might not work. For every client, every client is on a slightly different journey in terms of trying to reduce the risk to an acceptable level within the CRO, therefore they may not want the Rolls Royce of inspections, they may want sample inspections or notional inspections. And it’s about trying to work with customers and clients and have that blended approach so that we’re doing what is needed across their estates rather than what we think is right all the time. And I think the more we work with people, I think the better it’s going to be within the industry.

What would you include in an inspection I mean, there’s a typical rundown for a door, you need to be looking at the leaf, the frame, the thresholds, smoke, sales, closers, hinges, latches, glazing, quite a lot of stuff to be trying to get your head around. And within each of those sections, you’ve got to have Passfield criteria. But therefore, as I mentioned, is the Rolls Royce of surveys what people want, is it suitable and sufficient? Because it depends on the type of building, you’re in? What other measures are in within that building? Are there other design considerations to take account of? So really, it’s quite bespoke to the client, you should be developing it as you go. Is quite typical.

You know, you see these products for holding open doors, good products undermined by a fire door wedge. picture on the right, really, it’s a fire door on a on a stair, but it’s got a handrail there because obviously health and safety are as important. And we don’t want people falling down the stairs, whether there’s a fire door there.

Now, depending on the use of that room, I always find that one quite a strange one really, the fact that the handrail will be in that sort of location. And this picture I probably took about more than two years ago now. And earlier this year, I went back to the same spot, and I found that you’ll be glad to know they’ve addressed it and now it doesn’t have a handrail there as a double handrail, and they’ve finished off the tail and so it’s probably an opt in arch and helpful Safety monsters? Yeah. But we are all we are. And hopefully you’ve found what I’ve gone through interest, and it’s maybe made you think of some questions that you might want to ask, or it’s just giving you a better idea when you go back to your day job and think about what you’re trying to do in terms of fire safety and proven our industry.

So, Adam, that’s, that’s me.

Adam Clarke  40:24

Lovely. Thank you, Damian. So, we’ll you’ve got 20 minutes left. So, we’ll go through some of the questions that have been submitted. But the ones that I think are most interesting for the group watching, and any questions that we don’t get through, we’ll try and respond to after the webinars finished.

So, I suppose this first question, Damian picks up from your point early on about being late to the party, which should fire stopping and compartmentation form, part of the principle designers responsibilities under CDM?

40:58

Well, I think it’s been asked about a lot now is get early engagement. And there’s sort of key milestones or gateways now, in the planning process, and the earlier that you engage with the specialists, I think that the better the outcome. So, I agree the earlier the better. Adam, really, from my point of view, whether that has to be a specialist, subcontractor or a consultant, whatever the case may be, at the earlier you get engaged, definitely.

Adam Clarke  41:30

And I think as we as we know, it CDM from the client’s point of view, you’re even engaging a principal contractor and a principal designer, early enough in the in the process has been a historic problem. So, you know, those principal designers then having enough knowledge to even think about bringing in a, an additional consultant if they haven’t got that in house knowledge to pick that up. Because as you quite rightly said, all we end up doing is when we get a product, you turn up and be like, well, you know, this, this nice, finished product isn’t finished.

So how do we how do we get that early engagement bringing somebody into that design team who can really advise and say, Well, okay, this is I see what you’re doing here. But have you thought about how that’s going to work?

42:15

Yeah. And I think a lot of the expertise is, is there an industry, you know, there hasn’t been an influx of new expertise, it takes years to build it up? You can’t just get it so that? So, you know our industry? Hasn’t there? It just, I think it just needs to be exposed more and used more.

Adam Clarke  42:36

Okay, let me move on. Why is pink foam labelled as fire retardant widely used and left visible?

42:46

Yeah, good question. I’m sure many of us will have the answer to this, anyway. But pink form is, is a single product, when we talk about fire resistance, it’s a system, that’s probably the easiest way to explain it, a system can mean that a can of pink form setting on the table will not be fire resistant. It will only be fire resistant when it’s installed as part of a system.

So typically, it’s used as a linear joint back and material, or linear joint is a junction between two elements that are required to be fire resistant, obviously, you’d fill that void, but then it usually is capped off with an acrylic mastic which sort of gives it that extra protection. And in those sorts of scenarios, it works very similar to a fire door, you’ll have a set dimension that can’t be exceeded, you’ll use the form fulfil as a as a backer, which then is capped off in most cases was an acrylic again.

So as a system it works. Where it gets exposed, I think is that people don’t understand that product in its in its singular form is not fire resistant, unless it’s a system. And that tends to get used to filling voids in walls, which is it’s just not what has been used tested for if it’s used as tests. That’s fine.

Adam Clarke  44:01

And I suppose that kind of links into the next question, which is, once we identify an area that has been incorrectly treated, how do we deal with how to deal with that situation, especially considering the contractor is potentially long since departed?

44:14

Yeah, that is a tricky one. I mean, contractors go bust all the time. If they’ve gone to bust, I don’t think you’ve got a hope of going after them. You’re unfortunately left with the problem. If they’re still trading, then you’ve got a chance if you can gather the evidence that shows that what’s been installed is incorrect. And you’ve got a good chance of then common to put it right.

They should do I think, you know, contractors who maybe have taken their eye off the ball in the past and you know, it happens, nothing is perfect. No system is perfect. Mistakes will be made, then I think you’ve got a good chance to reengage in with them and get them to come back and look at it provided you’ve got the right basis to.

Adam Clarke  44:59

Thank you. The next question from a fire risk assessors’ perspective, is a visual inspection of readily accessible areas acceptable without physical evidence of the method of construction and materials used?

45:14

That is a good question. That is a good question, I suppose like anything to it depends on the information you’ve got for that building. If you’ve, if you’re satisfied, you’ve got accurate information on that building. And the build ups are clear. And we talked I don’t think I talked about owner manuals or regulation 38. But you know, there’s a responsibility that the responsible person will have this information to hand I know, that’s Dreamland.

For most people, it doesn’t happen. But in the perfect world, you would have that information, it would all be nicely in line with the golden thread, which, you know, that’s what we’re aspiring for, really, it should be more of a general risk assessment view of the building and how it works in combination with its fire strategy, and its provisions that are there to protect the occupants.

You don’t need to confirm something is right, if you’ve got the evidence to prove it’s right, it’s when we’re in the scenario we’re in now, where I think most buildings don’t have that information to hand then it’s about spa check. And it probably does involve an invasive aspect to the assessment, whether that’s done by the risk assessor or any other to prove it’s, it’s safe.

Adam Clarke  46:24

And I think from a from a CDN point of view, obviously, we’ve had the health and safety file, which has been a concept has been around for some while or which you’d like to think is where you would find that correct information. However, you know, buildings of a certain age, you may have had information at some point, but you know, where it where it is, you know, who knows?

And I suppose an interesting point, then when you’re looking at how do you manage the CDM, making sure that you’ve not only got that information, but it’s, it’s stored somewhere so that when a fire risk assessor or somebody else is coming in to have a look, that they can actually reference it because that that ultimately is going to save us save money over time, if that fire is because as I can’t competently determine or make a judgement, then we were almost forced to have to say, well, we need to go and actually investigate further.

47:17

Yeah, you’re right out of matter. I think sometimes, it might be different now, but certainly, prior to this, I’m not sure people knew the benefit of having this information. It was in a drawer, it was never looked at, it was never asked for it sort of it, you know, why would I need this, we still get our buildings assessed, we still get our work carried out.

And ownership gets passed from, you know, contractor to contractor company to company responsible person to responsible person potentially, depending on how people move around in their careers and whatnot. And, you know, the most frustrating thing is having had all the information and losing it because it can so easily get lost.

Adam Clarke  47:58

Yeah, and just having the I suppose the general awareness of that, that’s a useful thing to do. Because if the if the client isn’t aware, if the principal designer or principal contractor aren’t aware that this is something, then we’ve got what is good opportunity missed to have something that’s quite useful for the longevity of that premises.

Okay, moving on to the next one, then should there be a drawing or a plan of the building? Which schedules what firestopping is where?

48:29

Well, I mean, whether it’s a drawing, or whether it’s location references, or IDs, I always think that if you need to find something, then could you confidently walk to within a few metres of it if it’s fire stop. And I think no matter how that’s detailed, if you can do that, that should surely be good enough. It doesn’t always have to be a drone.

I think sometimes the expectation is that you’ll always have a drone. And that’s great, but some buildings don’t have drones. So, what do you do? You need to have points of reference?

Adam Clarke  49:07

Great, thank you. And as part of a competency check, should we ask a contractor to supply evidence of previous work, rather than just a list of projects that they’ve been on?

49:20

Yeah, good question. I mean, it’s quite common to get requested to submit case studies as part of a tender where you’ll talk about the type of project that was the challenges, how it was delivered, etc., etc. But what I feel will be good is, yes, you can submit a case study but the evidence that supports it.

So, for example, if you say that every single one of your projects is checked and signed off independently. That’s a very nice and easy thing to say in an attender, but you should be proven that you do that you should be challenged to produce the information It proves what you say your processes is actually what you do consistently, and not just a cherry picking of a sample of projects.

So yeah, it’s a good one, I must admit, you see, sir, you do see things that you find very hard to believe sometimes when you think about it in working in practice.

Adam Clarke  50:21

And I suppose the concept, which has been around forever, really is if you engage the cheapest contractor, you’re going to end up paying in the, in the long run. So, the challenge for our industry really here is that, how can we make sure that when you’re trying to put a tender list together of contractors that were actually, you know, we’re picking contractors that are at a standard, so that almost that all those challenges that we’ve just talked about? And how can you ever didn’t see it?

Well, you know, they meet this standard. So, we’re, we’re almost guaranteed that, you know, those that any one of those ones that we pick, are going to be there or there, thereabouts. And I think as we as we both know, Damien, you talked about the quality side of it, but the quality side of it for an organisation is like ourselves, it’s a cost that here perhaps at times, a client doesn’t quite appreciate what goes what goes into that both into training the people who are going to undertake the work, making sure that they’re their CPD is maintained, that we’re up to date with the latest standards that work is reviewed in internally and externally.

And it’s all additional costs. And when you when you add that all up, and you put that into the into the price that you’re submitting, you know, we come out looking at looking very expensive, when you’ve got, you know, if you’re potentially got a tender list that’s not compare it with that and all apples, and we’ve got a few pairs on the list as well. You know, how does the client make the right choice?

51:44

Yeah, it’s a good one. Because, you know, you may get onto a framework, for example, for five years, and you’ll be either top middle or bottom of that framework. And there’s a lot of pressure on the on the people that are reviewing those submitting those submissions to make sure that they’re getting the best and most relevant contractors together so that, you know, they can work on that framework and, and do the right thing. But you don’t tend to get performance reviewed. And actually, if you were brought in at the top, are you actually performing like that constantly? Because it’s so easy to do one great project, what’s very hard is to do 100 1000 10,000 great projects, the consistency is so difficult to get and the effort that I think a lot of ourselves and our contractors to do you know, the same works, constantly trying to do it is difficult. But that’s what we that’s what you’ve got to do. There are no second chances there.

Adam Clarke  52:43

No, no, absolutely not. Okay, time for just a couple more questions then. So, what maintenance checks or inspections should be done to fire stopping to ensure it’s always effective

52:57

In terms of fire stop, and well, when it’s installed, and it’s installed? Right? There shouldn’t be any concerns. It doesn’t degrade. For example, wear and tear shouldn’t be an issue. So, for me when it comes to firestop, and it’s just making sure that nobody else has tampered with that these other contractors that come in, they just find it the easiest passage through Belden, that’s the one thing you’ve got to be careful of.

I mean, a permit to work system will be great when it comes to compartmentation. So when you have any contractor come on, they have a permit to work says if you’re in this area, which is marked on this drone, these are the zones that you cannot touch without a permit to work. This is essential compartmentation. And it gets checked as the works are carried out or evidenced or photographed. In the perfect world.

That’s what would happen in terms of fire stopping if you just sit there. I mean, in some buildings, you’ll get firestopping above effects. Sealant never gets checked after you know, years and years. You can’t check it because it’s in. It’s in an inaccessible area, but it should be fine. Nothing should happen if nobody dabbles with it.

Adam Clarke  54:03

And I suppose then as a as a client or the responsible person or the premises manager, you when you’ve got a couple of buildings, maintaining that control over what’s actually what’s actually happening from a day to day point of view is relatively straightforward.

When you scale that up when you’ve got an estate that might have you know, 500 1000 2000 premises. How can we how can we try and effectively manage that is that when we need to bring technology into to give us that, you know, better handle on what’s going on in the estate?

54:36

Yeah, that’s interesting. You said that. Yeah, that when it’s like anything when you scale it up, it becomes more problematic. We’re trailing this thing now for compartmentation, where you zoned buildings and you QR code areas depending on the complexity. And then as contractors enter a building, they’ve got their induction which includes this system of notification works. It’s on a simple app where it’s scanned, yeah, I’m in this area, I’ve done small works to electricals have obviously learned. And that pings the client to say right, somebody’s been there. And what that can then do is give you a list of areas that need check in. So rather than check every single zone within the building, you know, actually, the contractors are only working for resumes that that needs checking, therefore, you can keep on top of it, and you can make the problem slightly smaller to handle, which is what it’s all about a lot of the time is just trying to make something manageable.

Adam Clarke  55:34

In your experience, with the clients that you’ve worked with, are there people who have those types of roles where they’ve got time to go and check on what’s been? What’s been done with a specific focus on compartmentation? Or is it more around the quality side of it? Is there enough focus for, you know, premises managers, facilities managers to actually be checking on that? Or is it more of a reactionary, when, when a specialist has been it’s been in that mean, my experience is a lot of it crops up from an FRA or an inspection.

So, a lot of the time you don’t even know people have been done work and gone. In very busy areas, there are people coming and go, and especially Max tenancies, it’s very hard to be managing everyone. And there’s areas there’s not in your control that’s getting worked on that you don’t know about. It’s a it’s a big challenge, I’ll be honest, it’s a massive challenge to understand what’s going on and buildings legacy, you know, the health of the building starts dropping, and you’re struggling to understand why it’s because it’s, it is an issue. I’m not I’m not sure there’s a very easy solution now.

No, and I think that’s probably where we are within both fire risk assessing and, and dealing with the controls afterwards is that we, you know, competence, obviously, is a theme that we’ve been running through here, how can we, you know, from a client’s perspective and the responsible person, how can we educate them, and really educate them and to understand, you know, what is what is required, and the value that you get from engaging a competent contractor, you know, there’s always the cost of it, when you look at it up front seems, can seem quite expensive, especially if you don’t have a budget to match.

But, you know, some of your slides show Damian as we well know that the hidden cost of mopping up the mistakes, or the errors that have been done by not engaging a competent contractor, obviously, run into, you know, figures that are, you know, significantly higher than what you would have spent initially, which at times, you know, you end up having to pay for it, because you’ve got no choice. Whereas, you know, on the other side of it, you know, get it right, get it right first time, and then don’t worry about it too much.

So how can we, you know, it’s a real challenge for industry for clients to be aware of that for contractors to step up and make sure that they are, you know, they have their own quality standards. They’re following manufacturer’s guidance, they’re checking their installations. And then how do we Whittle out those other contractors who aren’t willing to step up to that? And they’ll always be looking at, well, what can we get from a, from a price point of view? Because we know that we can go and do this work? And you know, it’s probably not going to get found out until, you know, years, years down the line when we’ve already? You know, we’ve long since left the project.

58:26

Yeah. I mean, certainly now, I think that, rather than people, the responsible people are getting better information on their buildings, and I think there is a clearer picture on what needs to happen. But it’s got to be more than a siloed, there’s the passive fire protection issues, there’s the active fire protection issues, here’s all the rest of your fire safety management problems.

You’ve got to look at them all and sort of decide where the main risks are. And on a case by case or risk basis, you’ve got to try and lower that down. But what I think most shocking is that people are getting pretty sort of poor reports on the condition of their buildings that they weren’t expecting. And I think going forward, the only thing you can do is you get back to that standard that you want to be at, and you protect it moving forward. You look after it and the self-police and the external policing, the scrutiny, the independent checks, I think that’s all going to pay dividends in the long run, but it will be a challenge at the moment.

Adam Clarke  59:33

No, agreed. Right? Well, we’re coming out of time then. So, Damien, once again, thank you very much for joining us today and talking about compartmentation. If anybody has any other questions that they think of after this webinar is finished, feel free to submit them through to [email protected] and we will send out the recording of the webinars and any other relevant information to you afterwards. So, thanks very much for joining and enjoy the rest of your day. Good afternoon everyone.