Incorporating BS 9999 into FRA's

[Steven N]

so much agree with all the comments on cherry picking, I have to ask people who think they can cherry pick for the bits they like, have you ever read the darned thing?

[Clevelandfire 3]

For my money if you do cherry pick its shows lack of competence. Think on mc hammer

[Mr. P]

BS 9999 is risk based.  AD's & other BS's are not. Particularly ADB being biased towards worst case.
MR - I agree - 'Simples', one or the other.

[jokar]

Interestingly, 9999 is a standard that allows you to cherry pick from other standards as well and can be used effectively as an FRA document as well as a design guide.  My belief is that it is limited as a design guide for new buildings and most consultancies will stick to 7974.  However, for conversion of existing buildings and for FRS's it could be a useful document.

[kurnal]

IMO BS9999 has its place as a tool for  creating or evaluating a risk based design that takes account of varying human factors, building constructional features and passive and active fire safety measures to justify variations to otherwise rather prescriptive design documents formerly used.

It is very simplistic in its approach and its outcomes are broad approximations from the more complex calculation based outcomes that would be achieved using fire engineering approaches such as BS7974.

It doesnt bring anything new and earth shattering to the table- what it does is actually quantify variations from a benchmark that may be achieved- giving paramaters for varying these benchmarks. We have actually been doing this for years- but without formal guidance over what variations are reasonable.


We have always known that human factors are a major consideration and hence we always had different guidance documents for sleeping risks, hotels, offices, factories etc, these took account of things like management levels, response times / travel distances / standards of detection to ensure that persons have an appropriate time to respond to a fire and get out of the building.

We have also in the past recognised that exit doors from high risk buildings needed to be wider to allow people to get out in 2 minutes, whereas low risk buildings were given a 3 minute evacuation time and hence exits could be narrower for the same number of people. ADB did us all a disservice by only having one set of tables averaged on a medium risk evacuation time of 2.5 minutes hence the 5mm/person based on approximations taken fromt he post war building studies.

In my mind its largely just a case of what goes round comes round.

[hammer1]

For my money if you do cherry pick its shows lack of competence. Think on mc hammer

Can't touch this

Now if I have got this wrong please enlighten me. BS9999 is a British Standard Code of Practice?? It is to provide risk based solutions for the 'competent person'. It is the next level from the 'copy and paste' level of the official guidance documents issued by the Government to assist RP's to do the FRA. The level above BS9999 is as mentioned the complex 7974 (if you thin 400 odd pages is big, you should have a look at this beauty).

The aim of BS9999 is to provide risk based solutions in areas from design, construction, and management.

So if you have an existing building obviously the design stage and construction stage has been and gone. However the management stage is a useful tool to advise the RP in carrying out their duties in line with the FSO. Please have a butchers at the Appendixes at the back, and tell me that you could not use that good bit of information to certain environments you assess and provide a more detailed and current FRA??

'Cherry picking' as you have decided to call it, seems like good common sense to me and to providing the RP with the best possible advice via risk base solutions.

In the real world designers/Architects 'cherry pick' ADB. In the real world BC seem to enforce certain parts of ADB. In the real world all consultants only 'cherry pick' wha various British Standards are relevant by risk base approach. No one gives a monkeys about Regulation 16B.

I personally have attended a course on BS9999 and have read it through a good few times in my sad life and feel there is a lot to benefit from such a document and obviously the whole document does not apply to all environments. If people read it properly and began to love it, I am sure you will come through.

But alas stick to your code hugging, Government documents if you want. Copy and paste was a great invention


When the building regulations first came out, wonder if it got the same response??

On a serious note, if you guys saw on a FRA in the executive summary the Company using the risk profile section (occupancy characteristics, fire growth, management levels) to advice the RP what type of management is required for such a property , would you not think it is a good add on the the FRA to provide more information to the RP into carrying out their duties or would you think 'this crowd are a bunch of cow boys'






P.S This is only my opinion

[hammer1]

so much agree with all the comments on cherry picking, I have to ask people who think they can cherry pick for the bits they like, have you ever read the darned thing?

How would they know what to cherry pick if they had not read the darned thing??

[Midland Retty]

I can buy into your argument Hammer1. I have no problem with BS9999 and akcnowledge it does have advantages over more established alternatives / standards.

But what you shouldn't do (note I ommitted the word mustn't this time round) is use bits of it on an adhoc basis.

The whole thing is designed to be applied from start to finish, all the way through. You shouldn't cherry pick the best bits from it simply because it's the easiest option.

Whilst BS9999 does allow certain "freedoms" there are trade offs and provisos to take into account - you cannot simply replace "A" with "B".

[Tom Sutton]

There is an article in the FRM journal for June 2009 called "Grand Designs" page 18 and the author comes to the same conclusion cherry picking is a no no choose ADB or  BS 9999 or BS 7974 and stick to it.

[Phoenix]

There can be little doubt that the next iteration of ADB will be compelled to follow the route that 9999 has taken.  In fact it won't be an 'iteration,' as issues have been referred to, it will be a completely new document.  That's why they're suggesting that it won't be coming out until about 2013.

And, probably about the same time, the CLG guides will need to be updated to incorporate the principles.  There's no stopping it.

(Here's another thing - if a building has been designed on the basis of 9999, how can you do a complete fire risk assessment if you're not familiar with the guidelines that have been applied in the design?  How can you check the exit capacities, for example?)

This is why all fire risk assessors should take steps to become familiar with the concepts in 9999.  It's not that hard.  Don't be put off by the length of the document, a lot of it is annexes that are aimed at specific building types and can be left until they are specifically needed. 

Stu

[kurnal]

Is that you in the picture Phoenix ? together with your alter ego?

[Phoenix]

Is that you in the picture Phoenix ? together with your alter ego?

I've changed it now.

Too controversial...

Stu

[Nearlybaldandgrey]

Am I being a bit thick here or am I actually reading that some people put there are using BS9999 on existing buildings?

My understanding is, after attending a relevant course, is that it is a design document for new builds or existing buildings undergoing alteration/conversion etc.

As one who looks at other peoples risk assessments, I would definately be challenging them, particularly if they have used it to get longer travel distances for example.
Absolutely agree that there shouldn't be "cherry picking" from the standards to get the best solution. Again, if it is done, then the risk assessor should be able to justify it, and more important, the responsible person must be able to understand it, after all, it's normally they who are sat in front of me being asked all the questions!

After all that, I do agree that the management part is relevant!

 

[kurnal]

Am I being a bit thick here or am I actually reading that some people put there are using BS9999 on existing buildings?

My understanding is, after attending a relevant course, is that it is a design document for new builds or existing buildings undergoing alteration/conversion etc.

As one who looks at other peoples risk assessments, I would definately be challenging them, particularly if they have used it to get longer travel distances for example.

Yes absolutely. Why not use the relevant guidance in BS9999 when carrying out fire risk assessments on existing buildings? Its really useful to analyse and clarify your thinking on existing buildings. Extending travel distances? Well yes perhaps. Heres a scenario.

Take hotel bedroom corridors as an example. Dead end corridors in bedrooms under the original FP Act red book guidance could be up to 13m long. Many of them are. But under the Fire Safety Order guidance the benchmark is 9m. Thats nearly 50% difference betweeen the two. Both guides covering existing buildings. Now what do we do?
BS9999 is an ideal tool to carry out a gap analysis and determine options for additional risk control measures. It gives us a reliable framework from which to work.

Heres another justification. Take a look at page 41 of the Fire Safety Order guidance for large places of assembly. "This guidance gives only limited advice..........for these types of premises the principles given in the following references should be applied flexibly......... BS5588 part 10........."

I rest my case mLud.

[jokar]

The text actually states that it can be used to do risk analysis as Kurnal has succinctly put it.  So 9999 is a tool through which risk assessment can be drawn.  There are a number of existing buildings out there not in use or in part use that with the conceptual approach of 9999 can be further utilised.