Fire safety does not stop with replacement doors

Richard Sutton, General Manager of Horbury Property Services, gives his thoughts on how fire safety can only be improved if culture and attitudes to it change.

“Every day our fire door and fire compartmentation engineers and inspectors visit public and private buildings to assess fire safety and carry out remedial works to make buildings safer.    They work in a wide variety of different buildings, from social housing, schools, libraries, offices and retail and when they finish their project, the customer has peace of mind that they and the building’s occupants are given the best possible protection.

However, you will remember this time last year, the whole of the UK had a wake-up call on fire safety – as a result of the tragic incident at Grenfell Tower.  Anyone would have thought this was the catalyst that would completely change a building owner’s or manager’s approach to fire safety, which had, in some areas, become more of a box ticking exercise Some positive news has come about as a result of the Grenfell tragedy, with building professionals starting to take proactive steps to ensure rigorous compliance with fire regulations. However, it still does not go far enough and perhaps a way of ramming this home would be to ask each person responsible for fire safety whether they would be confident that a member of their family would make a safe evacuation if they lived in the building. Only by putting it into that context can we make sure that those responsible have taken the steps they need to take to ensure the safety of occupants.

Fire door safety

There are many fire door replacement programmes being invested in at the moment, which is a very positive step forward.  However, what needs to be more rigorous is the approach to ongoing maintenance of these fire doors. 

We are still seeing today far too many examples of fire doors that are simply installed and left, with no maintenance. This includes doors that have been incorrectly installed and, for example, the gaps between the door and frame are too wide for the intumescent seals to operate effectively in the event of a fire.  The glass on a fire door, for example, may be cracked or may not be of the correct type, or the door closers are not being used correctly.

Fire safety inspections on fire doors and fire compartmentation are essential.  There needs to be widespread behavioural change, with particular emphasis on fire door and fire compartmentation maintenance. It is worth bearing in mind that a gap in a fire compartment with a diameter only the size of a pencil can allow smoke to pass through to such an extent that a person would not be able to see more than a few feet within a matter of minutes.

The Regulatory Reform (fire safety) Order 2015, it is a legal requirement that every building has a person responsible for fire safety.  However, fire safety may continue to be a box ticking exercise at best, or at worst ignored in some organisations unless it is driven from the top.  Directors and senior managers in companies, headteachers in schools, council leaders and elected members all need to be driving home to their teams the importance of good fire safety practices.

If in doubt there is no substitute for partnering with a specialist company, like Horbury Property Services.   We can produce a schedule that details actions that need to be immediately addressed and those that can be covered in a planned programme of works. By doing that you’ll be able to create a budget that covers it. Ultimately, fire safety, as we have seen from recent events, is one part of the overall maintenance regime that no one can afford to ignore.”

Horbury Property Services provides specialist inspection services for fire doors or fire compartmentation to ensure that a building is meeting requirements and remains compliant, in the interests of occupants and building owners.