Maintenance & Inspection - Future Proof Your Building
Your passive fire protection requires regular inspection and maintenance just like your active fire systems and equipment. Regularly inspecting Passive Fire Protection measures should be integrated into the comprehensive management of a building. This ensures that its fire protection systems align with the overall risk assessment and engineered design of the premises and its intended use. It is a requirement of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order Articles 17 and 38, that maintenance of all fire protection provisions be adequately maintained and monitored regularly.
Your passive fire protection requires regular inspection and maintenance just like your active fire systems and equipment. Maintenance of Passive Fire Protection measures must form part of the overall management of a building to ensure its fire protection measures are not at odds with the overall risk assessment and engineered design of the premises and its purpose. In particular, are the fire doors fit for purpose and all components in good working order? Is all fire stopping intact and in place? Have there been any breaches from services such as pipework, cabling, etc?
The Responsible Person needs to be aware of these considerations, which should be contained within the Operations and Maintenance manual for the building. Such information within the O&M document for the building should cover products used, when installed, changes, repairs, etc, providing a day-to-day running document health check for your building's protection measures.
However, for adequate maintenance to be provided for your building, a clear understanding of the fire strategy is needed. This information will be held within the fire strategy drawings and supporting documents provided at handover. If no such fire strategy exists, then a full survey and report to determine the correct strategy/compartment lines will need to be completed so that a maintenance plan and specification can be compiled, and all compartment lines be investigated to produce a comprehensive survey of the building's passive fire protection measures.
Further supplementary legislation to The Regulatory Reform Fire Safety Order 2005 will depend on the building type and use, to determine the frequency of fire door inspections.
Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022
The UK government has been working to strengthen fire safety regulations following the Grenfell inquiry and improve fire safety standards, with the introduction of the Fire Safety England Regulations 2022. Under Article 24 of the Fire Safety Order, these new regulations apply to high-rise residential buildings, residential buildings with storeys over 11 metres in height, and all multi-occupied buildings with two or more sets of domestic premises.
The responsible person for residential buildings under 11 metres, has a duty to ensure all fire doors, including flat entrance doors are capable of providing adequate protection. For buildings over 11 metres in height (equivalent to 5 storeys), the fire doors within the communal areas require inspection quarterly, and flat entrance doors on the best endeavour annually.
Likewise, buildings over 18m (equivalent to 7 storeys) are required to have the same frequency of fire door inspections as 11 metres and are considered higher-risk buildings and as such must register with the Building Safety Regulator. Records for these buildings need to be kept digitally and considered as a single source of truth (golden thread) to assist the Fire and Rescue Services plan for an effective operational response.
BS9999 & BS9991
British Standard Codes of Practice provide recommendations for Fire Safety in the design, management and use of buildings. Both BS9999 and BS9991 refer to the inspection of fire doors and ensuring their efficacy in providing sufficient fire protection.
British Woodworking Federation
The British Woodworking Federation also recommends 6 monthly inspections and many commercial buildings take a view on frequency depending on footfall.