Fire Protection

Building Owners, Landlords, Tenant and Facilities Management Organisations, under new legislative guidance, have a duty of care for the fire strategy and compliance of their buildings.

The new Fire Safety Regulations 2022 come into force in just under 2 months time. This new legislation states that the buildings ‘responsible persons’ must deliver the necessary fire door information to all residents of multi-occupancy buildings.

With amended Part B (Fire Safety) of the Building Regulations coming into effect from 1st December 2022, fire protection solutions manufacturer, Advanced offers the ideal solution with its compliant evacuation alert system, EvacGo.

Published on 1st June 2022, the updated Part B of the Building Regulations has now made it mandatory for all new build residential buildings over 18m to have an evacuation alert system. An evacuation alert system is vital to help fire and rescue services inform residents of a change in evacuation strategy during an incident. This gives fire and rescue services an additional tool to use on the ground, alongside existing methods of evacuation, improving safety for residents.

Fire safety is an important consideration in the building industry, and everyone involved in construction or property management should choose materials and processes to help prevent fires. This is especially important in multi-tenanted buildings like apartment complexes and retirement/nursing homes, where a fire can quickly spread and put lives at risk.

Many people don’t realise that most entrance mats are not flame-retardant, meaning they can fuel a fire and spread it around the building more quickly. Most building operators and landlords know the risks and will ask tenants to remove mats that aren’t classified as flame-retardant. Learn more about Flame-Retardant Entrance Mats with this guide provided by First Mats.

FrameFit is a brand-new, innovative, fire-rated, and fully tested system that solves a very common but serious problem with fire doors – excessive gaps between leaf and frame.

Current legislation states that fire doors with gaps of over 4mm between leaf and frame must be reported by inspectors as non-compliant, but despite this, a recent survey by one of the UK’s leading industry bodies reported that 75% of fire doors in the UK are non-compliant, and 77% of those that are non-compliant failed due to excessive gaps of over 4mm between the leaf and frame. Non-compliant fire doors will fail a fire risk assessment. This poses a threat to building inhabitants as well as asset owners, as compliant fire doors are required for effective compartmentalisation of a building to help stop the spread of fire.

Described as ‘the most advanced system for management of fire doors on the market’, Door Data Systems is an innovative system enabling the recording and storage of key data attached to fire door processes, including inspections, maintenance, and installations. Those responsible for fire door safety can be certain that they are taking a responsible, forward-facing approach to improving the standards of building safety by specifying Door Data Systems and joining National Fire Door Register.

Revised standards and a new Government bill to better protect people living in social housing are putting a fresh onus on the correct product and system specification, including roofs.

Stuart Nicholson, Roof Systems Director from Marley, says working with a single source supplier that understands the implications and can collaborate to ensure regulatory compliance should be a strategic imperative for local authorities.

Wednesday 6th July saw Aico, the European Market Leader in Home Life Safety, win two trophies for their HomeLINK Internet of Things (IoT) connected home platform at the EG Tech Awards and the Computing Digital Technology Leaders Awards.
At the EG Tech Awards, Aico won the ESG category, which recognises the best use of tech to improve the sustainability of a building and resident wellbeing. Aico’s entry successfully demonstrated how the HomeLINK IoT platform assists landlords in identifying properties for retrofit to increase thermal efficiency, while improving indoor environmental conditions by predicting the risk of damp and mould.