Smoke control systems

When new customers contact us at Colt about setting up their contracts, we frequently get asked a few common questions. If you have just taken over management of a new building and are unsure about where to start with your fire safety systems maintenance schedule, this article may have some of the answers you are looking for.

The consequences of the failure to maintain smoke ventilation systems can be dire. Fire often grabs more headlines, but smoke is the real killer.
In fact, twice as many people die from smoke inhalation than they do from burns. Often smoke incapacitates so rapidly that victims are unable to make it to an otherwise accessible exit.
In this article, we will outline everything you need to know about smoke ventilation maintenance, including legislation, frequency, smoke ventilation maintenance services and more.

Last month I wrote a technical review of the latest Fire Safety Bill, where I outlined the specific details of how the Fire Safety Bill legislation will be implemented and enforced.

Similarly, this month we will be focusing on the latest part of the attempts to create a reformed building safety regulatory system, specifically the Government’s Draft Building Safety Bill and what this will mean for the service and maintenance of buildings.

In my last editorial piece for Housing Association I wrote about the government’s proposed changes to the Building Regulations as they relate to fire and broadly welcomed them (the main concern is that the very sensible measures proposed for high-rise residential buildings should also be applied to their shorter cousins).

But principles are only as good as the way that they are applied, and in terms of fire protection, and of smoke protection in particular, the devil is certainly in the detail. If these systems are to work properly they have to be designed properly, installed properly and maintained properly. Sadly, this does not always happen.

Following the tragic events at Grenfell Tower, the subsequent Hackitt Review into Building Regulations and the ongoing Public Inquiry, Colt are proud to establish their viewpoint on Compliance and Competence.
The word compliance appears in the Hackitt Review Final Report 46 times and competence appears 152 times - these are clearly important terms for the fire safety industry, yet a recent conference on competence from the Construction Industry Council (CIC) working groups representing specific sections of the construction industry struggled to provide a clear single interpretation of what competence really means.

Dr. Barbara Lane's recent report raised numerous questions about the overall management of the smoke control installation at Grenfell.

Smoke Control Systems, as with other active fire safety installations, are rarely designed for whole building fires like Grenfell where fire spreads uncontrollably throughout the complete structure.