AnthonyB

No. The primary requirements are smoke alarms and if gas/solid fuel/oil appliances (other than cookers) are Carbon Monoxide alarms

Hi, No. Everything you need to know for a small building is in here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/making-your-small-non-domestic-premises-safe-from-fire

Unless you don't have a protected hallway approach (30 minute non self closing fire doors to internal rooms in the flat that open onto your internal hall which would also be 30 minute fire resistant, so that there are 2 x 30 minute doors between the risk room & communal areas) then there is nothing in guidance for new builds or existing legacy properties that routinely requires a 60 minute front door. Unfortunately there is a lot of misinformation & poorly skilled people in the residential fire safety sector and if every block of flats took it's freeholder to First Tier Tribunal over excessive fire door, fire alarm and emergency light issues & resulting costs they'd have little time to hear traditional FTT cases!

Do you mean the actual electricity meter - If so you would treat it an any electrical meter as appropriate depending on location & whether it's plastic or metal. If you mean the remote display then you need no special precautions

Based on the guidance cited by Neil and the information you give then original 1989 fire doors still in original working order would be tolerable. Perko chains are frowned on as they can't be adjusted and over time loose the ability to close the door fully flush in frame from all angles as required and if failing must be replaced and ideally should be replaced with EN1154 compliant closers (the biggest issue with the fire doors at Grenfell wasn't them being original 70's doors but that many did not self close). Some old rebate only doors can indeed be upgraded with intumescent strips and cold smoke seals & this is usually indicated in bigger blocks and isn't essential in small blocks like yours. So, as the FRA correctly says your existing doors are fine. The only slight (common) error is that they think that as under 11m the Responsible Person for the block doesn't have to check flat front doors - they do under Article 17 of the Fire Safety Order as amended by the Fire Safety Act, just that they don't have to have checked every single one (or made best endeavours to) in a 12 month period as per the Fire Safety (England) Regulations, just aspire to getting round them all in a year. I cover Yorkshire if you need any further assistance with this matter.

It's been required for a very long time for external stairs and roof escapes under previous legislation & would usually be required currently where a risk assessment deems it necessary. The emergency lighting standard BS5266 requires lighting from the exterior of final exits along the route to a place of ultimate safety. In certain situations borrowed lighting e.g. street lights can be counted towards lighting requirements

Emergency light test switches can be wired up so that all lighting has power cut as if the MCB was tripped, however some are wired only to cut the supply to each EL individually for H&S reasons so as not to have a safety risk (also a convenience issue) by loss of lighting. Where the switches are set up like yours are it's not uncommon to mark the fittings with emergency packs with self adhesive coloured dots so it's easier to spot which ones you are checking.

Depending on the age of the block and if the doors are the original fire doors and self closing in good working order then there is absolutely no retrospective requirement for them to be replaced, particularly as low rise - this is clearly stated in the Government guidance and unfortunately there are poorly trained risk assessors and remedial work hungry fire door companies that don't realise this. If not fire doors to any standard or beyond viable repair then you would need a replacement.

Yes - but they aren't cheap! https://doortechnik.co.uk/glass-doors?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAj9m7BhD1ARIsANsIIvClxv0V6qE2tcX_ewZ4w8khG-ZApH82FZTsuvJnm7ZMEZFcHMBGGfkaAj1OEALw_wcB

Duplicate post

Looks like a Banshee Excel and certainly isn't old.

Display materials and decorations Displays are often located in corridors and in entrance foyers, and generally comprise materials such as paper, cardboard and plastic which provide a means for the rapid spread of fire. You should evaluate what material could ignite first and what would cause the fire to develop and spread, and assess how materials used in temporary or permanent displays would interact with surface linings and position them accordingly. To reduce the risk of fire spread, you should consider the following: • avoid the use of displays in corridors and foyers; • minimise the size and number of display areas to discrete, separated areas; • do not put displays down stairways which are part of a designated escape route or where there is only one direction of escape (i.e. dead-end conditions); • treat displays with proprietary flame-retardant sprays; • the use of display boxes; • keep displays away from curtains, light fittings and heaters; • keep displays away from ceiling voids which may lack fire barriers; • ensure that there are no ignition sources in the vicinity; and • ensure displays do not obstruct escape routes or obscure fire notices, fire alarm call points, firefighting equipment or escape signs https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fire-safety-risk-assessment-educational-premises

A single available exit route can only be used by a maximum of 60 persons and gangways must be available at all times in halls. If you feel there is a serious risk then your local fire service are the enforcement body for fire safety legislation, which schools are not exempt from. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fire-safety-risk-assessment-educational-premises https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fire-safety-risk-assessment-small-and-medium-places-of-assembly

If you want to see a selection of old sounders there are some featured in this:

How old is the building? Why not ask the fire service - they may be happy as it is and if not will give you some pointers as to what would suit. Whilst not responsible for your FRA they are still permitted and indeed have a statutory duty to provide certain fire safety advice

I'd be asking why they all need full replacement rather than repair first and checking what minimum standard is required by the FRA. I see too many doors replaced where government guidance & risk assessments permit original doors, repairs and upgrades. I've seen that price range quoted around before a few times.

It depends on the size and depth of the gap - different products are available depending on the dimensions. Generally, for gaps up to 15mm you should completely fill the gap to the full depth of the door frame with tightly packed mineral wool. Make allowance though for a 10mm deep capping of intumescent acryilic sealant on both sides. The sealant should cap the mineral wool for a 10mm depth between the frame and the wall and not just to cover the surface of the gap. Intumescents are gap fillers and need surfaces to expand against under pressure, if applied to just a flat open surface they will just foam and fall away so they need to be inside the gap. This should be done all around the door frame to wall gap on both sides. Where the gap is up to 20mm, follow the same method as above but use tightly fitted 15mm timber or MDF architraves to overlap both frame and wall by at least 15mm. For small gaps such as 3mm to 6mm where use of mineral wool is impractical you should fill the gap as deep as is practically possible with intumescent acrylic sealant. For especially large gaps line the opening with continuous solid timber and fill any remaining gaps as above. (Gap filling information from previous posts on the subject by Neil Ashdown who regularly assists with fire door queries on here)

If the dampers are of the intumescent honeycomb or fusible link shutter type for fire then they are likely to have complied at the time of install. Retrospective provision of duct detection and conversion to duct detector activated smoke & fire dampers is not retrospective (nor is BS5839-1) unless the risk posed by them is intolerable, which would be based in part on where the duct goes and where it's inlets and outlets are. If your common area FRA doesn't require it then you wouldn't be obliged to undertake this, but you do have to coordinate fire safety with other responsible persons - if they want it but your assessment doesn't require it you could propose to undertake the work on the basis that the tenant pays for it.

Sounds excessive, plus useless in any case even if it was needed, I've seen this implemented and charged to leaseholders when not actually required & they've taken it to a FTT and had the charge overturned. Really small conversions like that often suffice with 30 minute compartmentation (as would a really small new build block of flats) making them suitable for stay put so no communal detection is required. A single ground floor lobby doesn't need smoke control & emergency lighting isn't considered a high priority either. On the other hand, if for some reason the compartmentation between the two flats was so poor that simultaneous evacuation was actually required you'd need more than two smoke/heat alarms as the common areas would need a smoke alarm that was linked to heat alarms in both flats so a fire is detected before if leaves the flat of fire origin and can wake everyone in each flat - which depending on flat layout may require additional linked alarms so as to ensure at ;east 85dB outside bedroom doors to wake people.

No, it's never been a requirement - just a single different call point each week gradually rotating them so each one gets tested eventually. A long time ago you had to have tested every call point within 13 weeks meaning on big systems you did have to test more than one a week, but that was dropped a long time ago - after all the service organisation should test 100% of call points each year across it's 2 or more service visits anyway.

Weekly testing, not monthly. Also servicing need only be 6 monthly. Opinions vary on the L5/AOV issue - if treated as a component of a smoke control system then you could argue that you follow the BS9999 maintenance intervals for smoke control systems - after all BS5839 does allow parts of it to be disapplied where it an L5 system is purely to operate a linked system as oppose to being a fire warning system.

That's what they are rated for!

That's rough work - they've split the frame and not provided the required fire rated sealing of the gap between frame & wall - a decorator would use unsuitable products. Look for certification stickers on both the frame and door as well as certification from the installer, but I wouldn't pay a penny for that. The whole exercise sounds deeply suspicious, both to the need for full replacement work initially and the price in relation to the quality of the work - whilst it's around what a quality install can cost did it actually cost all that for the job?

It's addressed in this guidance - https://nfcc.org.uk/our-services/building-safety/protection-building-safety/specialised-housing/

You don't - that's not the point of the monthly test. The annual test is considered adequate based on current battery & charger technology as fittings should not deteriorate significantly enough in a year to be a significant risk. Any 3 hour fitting should last for it's rated duration, there used to be 1 hour fittings for environments that only require 1 hour escape lighting, but these haven't been available for several decades.