Fire doors in HMO's

[johnny99]

nearlythere

I've only got it in hard copy.  I've never been able to find it on the internet.

Regards

[Big T]

Where is the risk assessment in a solution like "FD30S All round"

LAcors gives some accepted Mitigation methodology.

For example in a 2 story HMO with evacuation windows from the bedrooms it is acceptable to accept solid doors as supposed to FD30S

We have to be realistic in the type of things we are asking for in our FRA Action plan. I recently looked at 30 HMO's in a coastal town, 30% of the HMO's has a protected route with FD30S doors, 40% had solid doors with no intu strips and seals and the other 30% had rubbish eggbbox type doors on the bedrooms or single glazed door on the kitchen or living room doors leading to the escape route.

In my opinion the 30% of protected route are low risk, the 40% of solid doors are medium risk and the 30% of eggbox and glazed doors are high risk.

The action plan in each should reflect its risk rating and this should be considered by the budget holders as to which is rectified first. Do the high risk first, medium next etc

Many of the companies who run HMO's provide some sort of support in them, and generally these comopanies publish an excess of 30-40k per year. "Upgrade all your doors that are not FD30S accross your entire business in the next 12 weeks" Is not fire risk assessment. And is damaging. that kind of comment on an FRA would literally close business' down

High risk should be dealt with as quickly as possible (This financial year) and based on a risk assessed approach the medium risk could be dealt with over the next 2 - 5 financial years, Low risk requireing no change at all.

As assessors and fire managers we should be attempting to mitigate the HIGH risk stuff as soon as is physically possible with the proggressive upgrade of passive protection over an agreed period.

We forget that these buildings operate an evacuation strategy. Perhaps an increase in the fire alarm provision would mitigate some of the risks presented in buildings with traditional solid doors.

I personally am against retrofitting strips and seals as these have not been tested to BS476. Why not wait a little longer, get the right budget and upgrade doors and frames that have been tested.

I know the money issue is always discussed as being an unnacceptable reason to not upgrade something but this is business.

[nearlythere]

Where is the risk assessment in a solution like "FD30S All round"

LAcors gives some accepted Mitigation methodology.

For example in a 2 story HMO with evacuation windows from the bedrooms it is acceptable to accept solid doors as supposed to FD30S

We have to be realistic in the type of things we are asking for in our FRA Action plan. I recently looked at 30 HMO's in a coastal town, 30% of the HMO's has a protected route with FD30S doors, 40% had solid doors with no intu strips and seals and the other 30% had rubbish eggbbox type doors on the bedrooms or single glazed door on the kitchen or living room doors leading to the escape route.

In my opinion the 30% of protected route are low risk, the 40% of solid doors are medium risk and the 30% of eggbox and glazed doors are high risk.

The action plan in each should reflect its risk rating and this should be considered by the budget holders as to which is rectified first. Do the high risk first, medium next etc

Many of the companies who run HMO's provide some sort of support in them, and generally these comopanies publish an excess of 30-40k per year. "Upgrade all your doors that are not FD30S accross your entire business in the next 12 weeks" Is not fire risk assessment. And is damaging. that kind of comment on an FRA would literally close business' down

High risk should be dealt with as quickly as possible (This financial year) and based on a risk assessed approach the medium risk could be dealt with over the next 2 - 5 financial years, Low risk requireing no change at all.

As assessors and fire managers we should be attempting to mitigate the HIGH risk stuff as soon as is physically possible with the proggressive upgrade of passive protection over an agreed period.

We forget that these buildings operate an evacuation strategy. Perhaps an increase in the fire alarm provision would mitigate some of the risks presented in buildings with traditional solid doors.

I personally am against retrofitting strips and seals as these have not been tested to BS476. Why not wait a little longer, get the right budget and upgrade doors and frames that have been tested.

I know the money issue is always discussed as being an unnacceptable reason to not upgrade something but this is business.

Hi Big T.
I have a problem getting my head around the prioritisation approach of high, med and low risks. To my mind there is either an unacceptable risk or there is not. If medium risks, as some call them, can be dealt with over a 2 - 5 year time frame then they must be tolerable with no action required. It only suggests to me that dealing with these risks over that length of time is only to ensure that at some time the premises will be code compliant which is not how FRAs should be. Risk have only 2 levels. Acceptable or not.

[Big T]

I disagree, Risk has many levels and whilst may be as simple as acceptable or not many large campanies cannot commit to dealing with all risks in one financial year. So risk prioritisation is essential to dealing with issues a sensible fashion.

Fire services are quite blatently attempting to enforce buildings to comply with modern code.

As an organisation we need to have a schedule of works to rectify the most significant risk first. If you ask many people what they would deam as acceptable the perfect protected route is always the preferred option.

Can Medium risk hazards (Such as those described above) be rectified over a period of years due to budgetting and financial constraints? In my opinion yes they can.

Should Higher risk Hazards be dealt with as a priority and as quickly as possible regardless of financial constraints? Absolutely

[JC100]

Hi Big T.
I have a problem getting my head around the prioritisation approach of high, med and low risks. To my mind there is either an unacceptable risk or there is not. If medium risks, as some call them, can be dealt with over a 2 - 5 year time frame then they must be tolerable with no action required. It only suggests to me that dealing with these risks over that length of time is only to ensure that at some time the premises will be code compliant which is not how FRAs should be. Risk have only 2 levels. Acceptable or not.

I may be wrong but i think Big T means that the 'medium risk' are still items that do require attention, but, in the case of large companies like the one he mentioned, they sometimes can't afford to carry out all the necessary work at once so they therefore have no choice but to categorise their workload further and over longer timescales than others (low, medium or high).
If this is all properly documented in the FRA and the company can prove that it has been spending money on improvements then surely this is how the process should work.

[nearlythere]

I may be wrong but i think Big T means that the 'medium risk' are still items that do require attention, but, in the case of large companies like the one he mentioned, they sometimes can't afford to carry out all the necessary work at once so they therefore have no choice but to categorise their workload further and over longer timescales than others (low, medium or high).
If this is all properly documented in the FRA and the company can prove that it has been spending money on improvements then surely this is how the process should work.

I understand that entirely but are we adopting the ostrich approach for up to 5 years hoping that nothing happens during that period.

[Big T]

I dont think that it is fair to say companies are burying their heads in the sand. Our organisation has taken a risk assessed approcah in dealing with issues as all companies should

How would you suggest a large company such as a registered social landlord deal with the issues arising from 3500 fire risk assessments.

I would suggest a risk assessed approach. Starting with the high risk and ending with the low. If it takes 5 years it takes 5 years. But I would rather minimise the risk accross the entire organisation by removing the high risk issues from all buildings, than reduce the risk accross some of the stock by dealing with all issues in only 20% of the buildings.

There is no endless pot of money for fire safety in any organisation.

[jokar]

I agree with Big T.  All doors will have and give some degree of protection from fire and smoke.  Therefore, there is a quite different approach to be used in prioritisation between these sets of doors.  This is and can easily be identified and justified and whatever anyone thinks Cost Benefit Analysis is part of an FRA.  It has to be, the RR(FS)O is not and never was envisaged as a piece of retrospecvtive legislation. 

[Clevelandfire 3]

No its not retrospective in the sense you speak of but if a FRA or Fire Authority see the premises they should in my opinion be asking for upgrades within realistic time scales.Its all well and good syaing that fire authorities want it all in one go but i think this is a bit of a falacy and an exageration in most (not all ) cases.