FireNet Community
FIRE SERVICE AND GENERAL FIRE SAFETY TOPICS => Fire Safety => Topic started by: GB on November 28, 2016, 01:10:04 PM
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As a slight follow on from my previous post where I appreciated Wee Brian's plain english ::) what are the forums thoughts on the issue of TF construction during the construction phase?
The Structural Timber Association and UKTFA both produce a table for separating distances for different grades of TF construction which can be used during the construction phase of a project with the upgrading from Category A construction to Category B or C being expensive.
I appreciate that it may be better to spend increased monies rather than for fire spread to adjoining buildings - however are there other methods available to contractors?
I have one project which is a 4 storey timber frame building with the additional cost being in excess of ?40K for the upgrade however there are buildings within 6m of the new timber frame.
HSG 168 provides a risk assessment process in order to reduce ignition risks which the contractor should adopt irrespective of construction materials.
I am interested in views, other documents or approaches which can be part of bed-time reading while I await the new Game of Thrones series of books!
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The main problem of TF during construction is that there's a lot of unprotected timber. If you get a little fire it soon becomes a very very big one. hence HSE leaning on UKTFA
Rather than putting lots of nasty chemicals in the wood you could, I suppose, fundamentally change the construction sequence so you finish each floor before building the next one. I doubt this is very practical, it'll take longer and cost more - at which point you might consider another form of construction.
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It cannot become very very big after being little. It would need to be very big first. See that's whats wrong with plain English, you lose accuracy in the translation. it's like people saying plasterboard is non-combustible, rather than going into reams about Big I and little i etc.
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little to big is fast, little to very very big is ultra fast. I might write a book.
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When you compare the potential exposure from the building site to that allowed for a completed building it becomes very scary.
https://www.brebookshop.com/details.jsp?id=327392
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Kurnal i did have a look at BRE 187 to look at those distances with a view of the existing buildings rather than the building site - the differences are significant to say the least!
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If little to big is fast, and little to very very big is ultra fast, what is little to very big?
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that's a quite fast, I'll need to do another chapter on that.
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Quite is too imprecise. Make sure you give me the manuscript to edit for you.
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Can I be in your book Wee B? I used to be little and it took me quite, oops I don't mean quite, I mean about twenty years to get big, and since then I?ve been getting bigger and bigger (Girth mostly) Not reached very very big yet, but I'm ambitious. So I think I deserve a chapter of my own.
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Yes Colin very little to very big doesn't take much time.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-30751431
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I remember once we specified and accepted handover of an FD&A system in a London theater. Along came one of LFB's finest and demanded that the setting of the staff alarm timer be increased from 5 minutes to 10 minutes. I spoke to his boss and said we would only do this if we received a notice from LFEPA requiring this and if the mighty LFEPA put it in writing that they accepted liability for the consequences.
His boss patiently explained to me (in that patronizing way that only firemen and especially those in LFB know how) that I must have misunderstood (which of course is likely cos I have never operated a crash gear box; indeed I drive an automatic). You see, he went on to explain, little fires can become big fires in a short time, so LFEPA would never condone a 10 minute investigate period. I said I thought I was following though clearly this was a bit too advanced fire engineering for me, because it went well beyond MSc level, but maybe he would like to talk to his officer.
A little while later he came back to say that the officer had not only demanded that the timer in our theater be increased to 10 minutes but that he had done the same in loads of other West End theaters. I said that this was clearly PhD stuff that was completely beyond me and that presumably LFEPA had God-like powers that prevented little fires from becoming big fires in a short time, at which point the supervisory wallah said unfortunately he would need to go (presumably to loads of West End theaters), but that, whatever we did, we must NOT change the delay period to 10 minutes.
Your book, Wee B, will need to explain how, in the West End, fires grow more slowly. You may need LFB to write the chapter for you, as you have never smelled smoke other than when Mrs WeeB burned your dinner.
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I think you did your studying in the north of the country (or maybe the south of a Northern country depending how you look at it).
Clearly they did not explain the impact of latitude on fire growth, its the fourth side of the fire triangle.
Maybe my book will need to be a trilogy.
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I have been a forum member for quite some years now and I must say that it has been of great benefit. However, would some kind soul please tell me what LFB ever did to Mr CT that has incurred his obvious disdain of that organisation?
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a. they are not Scottish,
b. the person who organized it historically was Scottish and was poached from Edinburgh
c. they are not Scottish
d. any other reasons see points a and c.
Kurnal also has a theory from reading lots of Mills and Boon that in fact CT has a passionate love of LFB but is not prepared to admit it.
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Wee B How can you have the fourth side of a triangle. Anyway I thought the fourth side was all to do with free radicals, though what Brexit supporters have to do with fire I am sure I dont know.
Dunnster, you know Brian's wee book, well mutiply the length of it by 10 and you would have the disdain book. But I am bound to admit I love the word disdain. See that's what keeping grammar schools in NI has done- given eloquence to the population. Had you been educated in Souf Landan, you would have called it something like pooh pooh.
Buckles, did you mention that they are not Scottish? But I loved the reference to Jimmy B, who I sometimes give a thought to as I drive down Tooley Street (with the car doors locked obviously). Today of course he wouldn't have been in Tooley Street; he would have been in Gold Command, probably somewhere in Cornwall. He actually went to the same Edinburgh school as I did (though clearly some time before) and of course set up a fire brigade in Edinburgh before London. It is also a scurrilous lie that the Met were the first police force as Edinburgh had one first. But we Edinburgh people often travel to third world areas such as London to help the natives, so I try to follow in Jimmy's footsteps by helping our very good friends the LFB as much as I can. Though it is often a thankless task, Jimmy will be waiting to shake my hand for my valiant efforts when I shuffle off this mortal coil.
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I am at a loss to see what this has to do with fire safety in timber framed construction? Such off topic ramblings should be confined to the meeting room please.
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The more posts you get in a subject, the more random they get - its the law. I think we answered the question after the first few posts....
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Ok Big Al, you grumpy old man, mea culper (or in LFB-ese, aw wite guv its a fair cop). It is just I was getting bored of timber- we do timber fire spread calculations to determine cost effective frame construction vs separating distances by the bucketload. If you want the proper answer, no, I am afraid reducing probability of ignition is not the answer. Risk is a combination of probability and consequences. It is not enough in this case to say that, because of control over ignition sources, its not very very likely we will wipe out the neighbouring street.
But like my good friend quite, but not very, dimensionally challenged B, I thought that UK had had his answer in the earlier posts.