Fire Risk Assessments

Hi All, I have a question I hope you can help me with. Is there an alternative solution to Georgian Wired Glass in fire door vision panels? I have an enquiry from a care facility that has a tenant who constantly smashes the vision panels in the cross corridor fire doors. Has anyone else had this issue? If so, how did you achieve maintaining compliance? Obviously blocking them up is a non starter as you still need to see through the doors. Any guidance would be appreciated!

In 2019 I had a professional fire risk assessment carried out for my Guest House by an ex fire officer. At the time he said we should decommission the fire escape (as its unsafe) provided we upgraded the ceilings in the basement to 2 hours compartmentation, updated the basement doors to half hour fire doors and carried out additional staff training as this would reduce the risk and extend the travel distance from 18 meters. 2 weeks later the local authority fire officer visited us and said we should carry out the work noted in the fire risk assessment which we did. About 2 weeks ago we had a visit from a different fire officer to carry out an audit of the fire risk a…

Is it possible to put a fridge in a cupboard under the stairs?

Hi all, Long time viewer of these forums, but this is my first post. I have a question on doors opening onto corridors in what is essentially a mixed usage office/educational building. The rooms onto the corridors are within a building containing a mix of office admin usage with some other rooms being used for teaching/delivering training input and lectures. My question would these doors require to have intumescent strips and smoke seals fitted along with self closers? The building dates from the late 1960's and the existing doors are what appear to be simply nominal doors rather than fire doors. However some of the doors in question have self closers on them a…

I have been asked to fit new fire rated hinges to a fire door, the original hinges have 4 screw holes, the new ones supplied have 5 screw holes but do not align with the old screw holes, would this defeat the fire rating of the door or do the old holes need to be plugged before new hinges are fitted

I have a plan in for a 90 seater ground floor restaurant with an enclosed kitchen with fairly large openings such that a fire would be obvious to patrons. Two MOE one at the opposite end to the kitchen and one which is accessed by passing by one of the openings. BC have rejected plan on the basis of the route passing the opening. TD is well within limits. On the principle that a fire will be in one place only, I see no issue. Would appreciate comments.

Hi, I sure if in right place, let me know if need to move to another forum. Just qualified as a Surveyor and noticed something odd with own 4 bed New Build House. 1. Windows in bedrooms are all too high up to be egress windows. Not 1 window upstairs complies, builder agrees. 2.Bedrooms have intumescent strips on frames (3 sides) 3. Building claim it complies as stairs and landing are a protected stairway. 4.stairs lead straight down to small hall and front door. 5. Between stairs and door is Kitchen diner door (glassed), (left) and Sitting room right 6. Also on right between stairs and door is Electric consumer uni…

I live in a block of flats built in 1984, the front was retained from an 1890 commercial building but the rest of the flats were purpose built with solid concrete floors, smoke vents at the top of the communal stairs and fire doors off the stairs. The flats are over 4 floors including the basment flats. A fire assessment has been carried out each year professionally and commissioned by the management company which consists of 5 of the residents, no fire safety issues have been raised in these assessments. More recently the local city council environment health have visited and said that because the building does not adhere to 1991 building regulations it must have smoke a…

Are there any regulations regarding the termination point of a twin walled hetas certified flue and the distance to tree branches which are subject to TPO .. is there a minimum distance which is regulated ? many thanks

Hi, In relation to protected routes. Building Description - Small Office Building, 64m2 Footprint, 2 Stories, 1 means of escape from first floor, Travel Distance 18m, automatic detection throughout. The single escape stairwell is open and leads onto an unprotected corridor. (I.e no fire doors). The rooms that lead onto this corridor include a toilet and a storage room. Question 1. Does this route require protection FD30s? or can the automatic detection mitigate the travel distances? Is it wise just to note that doors should just be closed and well fitting. Question 2. If so, in any circumstance does a single direction of travel in excess o…

I am conducting a fire risk assessment, and have a set of 1st floor offices, two exit stairwells, one at the end which is protected, and the other is part way down, leaving two offices and a tiny office with only one escape route which is only about 8 meters to the top of the stairs. There is a door a few meters back from the stairs, but not fire resisting. None of the doors onto the corridor are fire resisting, but the section with two escapes has fire doors at each end before each set of stairs. I'm thinking that the dead end section could be satisfied with the installation of automatic detection to the corridor, stairwell and exit lobby downstairs, consider…

Help as for the love of looking i cant find and answer to this?! A pub has a LG bar area with 5 exits, three are close to one another and have to be discounted, the remaining two lead to a single protected stairwell, each door has the capacity for 100 as opens outwards and are 800mm each. The shared escape stairwell is 830mm and am concious of bottlenecking as in theory the doors combined allow a total of 200 people, do i use the calculation of just 100 people on the same grounds as a door width capacity or is there an alternative calculation? Any help greatly appreciated.

I read that the building regulations stipulate that there must be 400mm from the door or swing of the door to the bottom of the stairs, does this apply to pocket doors as well?

Can anybody advise on the separation distances between LPG tanks and flammables please? At work we have a LPG bulk Storage compound with chain link boundary fence. The site manager wants to mask this off with a hit and miss wood fence (see example below) next to the chain-link boundary fence which is 1.5m from tanks - they are six in two rows of three. I'm thinking the potential fire loading of that type of fence could give risk to the tanks and the gap should be bigger than 1.5M. I'm aware there is a code of practice doc but am reluctant to purchase at £90 if I can avoid it for what I'm hoping is a simple one. Thank you in advance!

Hello, I'm in the process of buying a flat in a new building and the developers have refused to issue a Fire Risk Assessment. They say they will issue one after completion happens. I'm a bit tipped off about their refusal and I'd like to understand what are the potential risk associated with having the FRA after completion. Does this mean that if the building does not comply with current fire legislation the then owners will have to pay for the remedial work? Why would the developer refuse to issue a FRA prior to completion if this is a legal requirement? Thanks for your assistance and regards Elizabeth

Hello, I am a lessee in a block of 12 flats. The management company have written to me saying that I am responsible for improvements to my flat door; i.e., smoke seal, replacement of door hinges, adjustment or replacement of the door closure. That I have a duty of care to my fellow lessees. They are saying that it is my responsibility to carry out the necessary works. They also want me to provide them with the relevant fire certificate. Is this correct what they are saying? What am I paying the management fee? I would be very grateful if somebody could clarify my situation? Regards Ian Vickers

We are looking to install a recirculating extractor fan in the café of our office premises and I wondered if there were any additional fire safety measures we need to implement in order to have this installed? We have had a recent Fire Risk Assessment carried out and the Café is compliant in all areas so wanted to enquire what impact this would have.

Hi All, Do all roof voids (regardless of size) in premises need to be compartmentalised with walls which extend to the underside of the roof to fall in line with the walls in the floor(s) beneath them? Or does having continuous plasterboard ceilings remove the need for cavity barriers in the roof void at all? We have a building which has a protected stairway used for refuge and evacuation, and has continuous plasterboard ceiling across the top floor between roof void space. But the walls in the stairway do not extend up through the roof void space leaving the roof void completely open space. Diagram 9.1 of ADB suggests the voids should have cavity bar…

Basic question... Office corridor, MoE one end and at midway point, meaning there is a dead end of maybe 12 metres. Four or five offices along the dead end. The two remedies I understand however, do you extend the solution the full length of the corridor or just within the dead end area to the midway point MoE? So for example detection on all office along the full length of corridor or just offices in the dead end part of corridor? Thanks,

I own a blocks of flats in saint annes, I have recently decided to use a unused small room for storage, its ground floor the room is 2m x 2m and has a wooden none fire door screwed shut which leads to an old lift. I am having the entrance door and frame changed to a fd30 one, its entrance in the side of the building, but i am unsure of what i need to have done to the lift entrance because it is unused? Do i need a fire door and frame then lock it ? or it ok how it is or should i have it taken out and bricked up or fire board it. Any help would be most welcome, thank you for your time.

Hi all, strange one. In every place I have worked previously there has been a sign in sheet for people on site. With opening up post COVID, we are keen to remove bottle necks into the site for more limited distancing. We have been requested to remove sign in process, prior to COVID, we did not have a sign in system either and relied on fire marshalls through the buildings. With less people on site due to gradual reopening, we do not have fire marshall presence. We do swipe in and in theory could interrogate the system but: This would mean someone accessing the system and printing off a register when really they should be exiting the building…

Hi there, I live in one of 5 flats in a large converted house. We don't currently have a fire detection system which has been highlighted in our fire risk assessment so I need to rectify this asap. I am hoping that someone would be kind enough to recommend products that would satisfy the following requirements: Grade A, interlinked - WIRELESS Common area (LD2 coverage): 4 x smoke detectors Inside each flat front door: Heat detectors (5 in total) Many thanks in advance... Simon.

Hello there. We're have share of the freehold for a Victorian conversion, which is two flats (one ground floor and another a two floor maisonette). The only communal area is a 4x7ft hallway which houses doors to our flat and the staircase which leads up to the maisonette. We're looking to sell our flat and have been informed we'll need a fire risk assessment for this area. Given it's so small and looking online we felt we'd probably be able to do the assessment ourselves, but just wanted to clarify a couple of things. Would all doors in this area need to be fire doors? If a door doesn't have a specific marking, is there any way to tell that a door is in fact a fire …

Hi there, We've been having an absolute nightmare regarding our communal hallway for a block of 4 apartments. Our complex is made up of around 30 blocks of 4-5 flats, all with communal hallways. These hallways have electric convector heating in them where the heater is just away from the end of the staircase. We pay an amount to our management company every month for upkeep of the gardens and other communal spaces such as cleaners. This also used to include the cost of heating and electrics used in the communal spaces. As of August our management company has told us that they can no longer run the electric heaters in the halls as it is a fire safety risk follo…

Hi, I am a fire risk assessor for mainly schools and have a NEBOSH General Fire certificate, LFB Fire risk assessors qualification from when they were still running in Southwark and FPA qualification in passive fire protections but would like to broaden my knowledge and increase my competence and look to join fire risk assessor register i.e. IFE. Can anybody give me their best thoughts on courses that would be best to do this? What is the best route to take? I have limited ability to travel long distance for courses are spend time way from home. Also does anybody know if there is training which is relatively inexpensive for CPD in fire doors, alarms systems, emergen…