Fire Prevention

I live on the first floor of a three storey block of flats with a wooden bay window. Neighbour below me has a patio door underneath. I'm having a quote for repairs/painting of my bay window. The contractor is telling me the underneath has to be fitted with fireboards. I cannot find anything in fire regulations or building regulations that says it is mandatory for this. Can anyone tell me if I have to have them fitted by law or not?

Hi All I’m a responsible person for several blocks of 4 storey purpose built flats some 25 years old. The meter cupboard doors (which are on each level) look to be fire doors, but there’s no obvious certification. The cupboards are substantially built. The doors are in good order. They would have met regulation at the time of construction. How do we decide if these need upgrading? And if they do what suggestions are there please. Thanks

We have received a Fire risk assessment for an apartment block that says the building is compliant, however the fire officer has added a set of recommendations, would all of these need to be implemented? An example mentions the service cupboards opening onto the protected area have a breach to a ceiling void and need to be fire stopped.

What do you make of this. It seems claims will not be considered where a breach of fire safety regulations is either confirmed or alleged. Protection for client, designer and contractor (and perhaps fire risk assessor),is no more.

Hi, the staff in our laboratory have asked if they can hang their lab coats onto the doors of an electrical cupboard located in the lab as there's no wall space available next to the entrance. I'm a little bit uncomfortable with this as it doesn't seem sensible to hang flammable material to a fire door. Just wondering if anyone has any opinions on this. Thanks.

Hi, I am hoping that someone will be able to give me some advice please. I have a flat and the bedroom window is on the fire escape route, so should be fire rated glazing. The trouble with this, is that this would be a fixed pane, and would then not meet the regulations to provide an exit window from the bedroom. It seems to be a catch 22 situation, either the glazing is fire rated to adhere to the regulatations for a fire exit route, or the glazing is standard to adhere to the means of escape regulations. Any advice appreciated please?

Good afternoon, I am looking for advice on my new build. The new build has ground and first floors with one more room on the second floor. It appears because of this room on the second floor in the loft the means of escape doen to the ground floor and REI30 regs require fire doors for rooms opening onto the means of escape (no problem) but also in addition that the glass ballusters in the galleried landing on the first floor needs to be fire resistant glass. Alternatively the balusters could be metal, but any glass has to be fire resistant, is that correct?

On a similar thread, we have just removed a ground floor under the stairs cupboard in our 3 storey town house. It has now dawned on me that we may need to add in some additional fire retardant measures along the underside of the staircase... is this right, or should the stairs be inherently fire retardant? Thanks

I moved into a new 3 storey property in 2010, I rent this from a housing association. The property has fire doors on all floors. Should the HA be inspecting these annually ? They never have. I have asked them but they said no, they only inspect fire doors in communal areas and not single households. This doesn’t seem right, advice appreciated.

Do service riser cupboards/shafts in residential buildings require fire stopping at both ceiling and floor?

On my recent FRA Course I was told that fire rated MDF Frames can only be used on private premises and not in commercial buildings, can someone confirm and elaborate please. cheers

Is there a spread of flame characteristic for float glass? A BC officer has asked for confirmation of same from a professional glazing body. I never considered the matter before as I thought the required SOF classification for any type of glass would be met naturally. The glazing is just a decorative element in a restaurant so no fire resistance required.

Hi, If a door frame is penetrated by a cable would still be acceptable if the intumescent silicone is used to seal around the cable? Please see photo attached for reference. Thank you,

HI Guys, Are you able to advise on a smoke vent concern please? Its a four storey purpose built block, probably built in 80's. 3 flats on ground 6 flats on first 6 flats on second 6 flats on third. There are no lobbies, its all open corridors throughout. All doors to flats and cupboards are FD30s. Travel distance seems to be 10m from furthest door to stair area There only VENTILATION is the front and rear entrance/exit doors at the bottom, and a high level manually openable roof hatch on the third floor. But you would need a ladder to reach it as its quite high up. There is no possible way to install windows on any floor. …

I have recently moved into a flat in a retirment complex. The fire doors on the corridor bang shut every time someone goes through. One door hits so hard it bounces!!! At 11.30pm they all bang shut together, waking me up after just getting to sleep. In the morning they are banged open onto their retainers. The manager says they all need replacing as decorators painted over the intumecent strips. How long do the freeholders have to put them right? What else should I do. I understand that firedoors must close, but do they need to bang so loud?

We have 6 fire boxes on lido village parkhomes. These fire boxes have 2 x9 lb fire extinguishers in we have 56 units. By the time we’ve broken the tie wrap to get into get one, we feel our units would be ashes in a breath. I see that in the fire regs it states to having these but also 2 buckets a water tap and hose which we haven got, we’ve not even the minimum required according to these regs. We know they would never put fire hydrants in plus hose reels. So does anyone know if these as they are will be adequate. ty fir your time.

Hi, Currently there is condensation coming through concrete ceiling on top floor flat which is on the second floor. To eliminate condensation to the ceiling I am going to stud it out with 50mm x 50mm timber and then use 50mm thick Celotex insulation between the studs to fill the void and then plasterboard. Some one asked me to thermal board straight on to the studs but I was very concerned about the weight. Would this comply to fire regs by using the celotex insulation and plasterboarded over the top as I know it is fire resistant?

Hi guys, Looking for some advice on fire regulations on an apartment building. The building is 3 stories with 3 apartments on each floor. One main stairwell up the center and a small corridor to each apartment. Does anyone have the fire regulations for apartment buildings like this? My main concerns are the fact that each apartment does not have a smoke detector, the main stairwell doesn't have working smoke detectors, each apartment does not have a fire door to enter the apartment and residents are storing large amounts of stuff in the corridors, such as wooden bed frames, bicycles, kites etc. Although this is not blocking the walkway as it's at a dead e…

Hi If a manufactured solid wood FD30 door has the top leading edge corner cutoff by the site team am I right to say that this invalidates the door as it is no longer as tested and that they cannot simply remove 25mm of the chamfered edge and replace this with hard wood then fill and repaint. Also the doors are Todd Doors who state that they dont need stickers or plugs on teir doors as they have a certificate that covers all doors.

We have a log burner. About 8 weeks ago our neighbours complained that it's was causing smoke and soot in her loft space. She reported us to environmental health who cleared us and said her issue wasn't anything to do with our log burner. She still complained so we paid for smoke tests cameras etc which again came back negative. The sweep said that what he believed was happening is that the smoke is exiting our chimney and being "sucked" down hers and she must have bad pointing loose bricks etc where the smoke is existing into her loft space. But he said being that our chimneys are 4/5m apart and that we don't generate much smoke at all, that it's a …

If a separate room was built out of fire boards in a loft space would we be able to store combustible materials in it?

Consider a typical restaurant premises, would you consider the kitchen to be an ancillary part for the purpose of Building Regulations? Before Anthony jumps down my throat, I did post this on another forum for which I have the upmost regard. However, it has fallen apart over the last few years, which is a pity because it is incredibly beneficial to get the views of other professionals in the industry. I note some cracking good advice on this forum.

If our new build house has whole house surge protection, but we use non surge protected extension leads, is this a fire risk?

I've always been under the impression that a commercial premise (office space) should have a 30 minute fire resistant ceiling even when in a multi storey block unless it is below residential premises obvioulsy. Am i right in thinking this as ADB has confused me

Hello everyone, I am currently in the process of buying the leasehold flat (owned by a private management company) that is pictured by the following floor plan, whose construction was finished in 2004: Currently, there is a corridor standing between the bedrooms and the Living-Dining / Kitchen area, fitted with a FD30 Door. Ideally, I would like to turn this into an "open space" environment, removing the partition wall (barring the steel pillar that sits in the middle of it) that separates the corridor from the aforementioned living space. However, I know that one must provide safe passage from the bedrooms to an exit, and the only exit of this f…