5 minute read
Knowledge is power
By Jim McGonigal
Fire safety design summaries can help electrical contractors identify measures fi tted in buildings at the time of construction, as well as any assumptions made
Once a nondomestic building is complete and occupied, it can be diff icult to establish fully what fire safety measures are incorporated in it, or what assumptions were made by the designers of the fire strategy for it.
To resolve this problem, fire safety design summaries (FSDS) are now required to be provided with completion certificates relating to the construction of, or conversion to, new non–domestic buildings, including extensions to existing buildings.
To help with access to the information, the FSDS is required to be held on Part II of each local authority Building Standards Register. The aim is to make the FSDS available to the owner or occupier, duty-holders, fire risk assessors and enforcing authorities. The information will also be useful to electrical engineers who work in non-domestic buildings on life safety electrical equipment and need to know what the original design was. The requirement to provide a FSDS does not apply to domestic buildings.
The FSDS is a document submitted on completion of the building works, so greater reliance can be placed on its accuracy at the time the building was first occupied. The FSDS template allows for the fire safety measures in a building to be identified, including details of life safety systems such as: • Automatic fire detection and alarm systems; • Smoke/heat ventilation systems; • Emergency lighting systems; • Integration with non-fire systems, such as automatic doors, lifts and air-handling units • Provisions for reducing the spread of fire including compartmentation; • The means of escape.
This regulation was introduced more than three years ago in Scotland, so the Scottish Government Building Standards Division (BSD) has now assessed its impact. During this process, industry practitioners made BSD aware that the online FSDS template should include a requirement for a signature by a responsible person with appropriate training to be aware of the hazards involved. This person would be responsible for confirming the measures proposed in the fire strategy had in fact been installed. Without a signature, the form might be submitted without due care.
The revised template was introduced on the BSD’s website in February and is available at www.gov.scot/Topics/ Built-Environment/Building/Buildingstandards/techbooks/firesafetdesgn. The template has been welcomed by local authority verifiers, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the wider fire engineering community.
Half measures
Several investigations in the UK have identified where the standard of fire safety measures at both the
construction and installation stage are substandard or, at worst, non-existent.
The latest example was documented in the Cole report of the independent inquiry into Edinburgh school construction. This identified “fundamental and widespread failures of the quality assurance processes of the various contractors and subcontractors” and “the significant number of defects reported in the surveys of fire-stopping in the PPP1 schools. These surveys undertaken during the inquiry period raised further concerns as to the degree of scrutiny necessary to achieve the required standard.”
The report recommends that: • “The production, retention and updating of accurate construction and operational information and
related documentation on projects should be regarded as a fundamental requirement and requires a systematic and disciplined approach by all parties to the contract”; • “Contractors should also be required to certify that the as-built documentation as provided is an accurate record of what has actually been built”; • “Consideration be given to the requirement for ‘as built’ drawings as prepared for and certified by the contractor to be submitted to the local authority verifier (Building Standards) as a definitive record of what was built. This could be a formal part of the completion certificate process”; • “Consideration be given to the introduction of independent indepth inspection and certification by a suitably qualified person or specialist company, in accordance with the provisions made within the Building (Scotland) Act 2003, and that this certification be required to be provided to Building Standards as evidence of fully compliant installation, prior to the approval of the Completion Certification by Building Standards”.
Certification recognition
The report gives recognition to certification by approved certifiers of electrical installations, and confirms that a better level of assurance of compliance with the building standards is achieved through certification. Approved certifiers are trained on not only electrical installations but also the wider requirements of the Building (Scotland) Regulations 2004 as amended, including many other aspects such as compartmentation and fire-stopping of service penetrations.
In summary, the requirement for an identified person confirming that the fire safety measures are provided in accordance with the submitted building warrant gives confidence that what has been proposed in the design has been installed in the finished product.
Fire engineers can off er specialised fire safety knowledge that may be required for more complex fire strategies. The provision of a fire strategy can, at times, be isolated from the construction process, and site visits can provide a useful insight into the problems that arise during construction.
This approach can help the fire engineering profession be more responsive to the needs of the designer, the contractor and the regulator. It is important that electrical engineers are aware of the fire safety design summary, where to find it and how they contribute to this important document.
> A fi re safety design summary must now be provided for every new nondomestic building
» Jim McGonigal is technical author in the Scottish Government Building Standards Division
