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fire compartmentation is regularly checked. Consequently, this should be an integral part of any existing fire risk assessment. Building owners and facility managers need to verify that the person undertaking the fire risk assessments includes a review of a building’s fire compartmentation, focusing on whether penetrating services have been suitably fire stopped and properly supported, and are in good condition and complete. In addition, they should check for third
party certification of products used and the identification of installers. All fire stopped penetrations need to be labelled and recorded. The fire risk assessment should be carried out by a competent person or external fire inspection company. At some stage, most buildings undergo
alterations. For instance, offices are regularly refurbished to attract new occupants, IT systems are updated and floor plans are changed. Before any of these works are begun, it is good practice to carry out a pre works survey. This will ensure that any penetrations in fire rated compartments are identified and an appropriate fire stopping solution is selected, if required. These can then be added to the work schedule, to help ensure that the work is completed – it is still common for fire stopping to be missed
on busy or large projects – and that the completed fire stop is correctly logged and documented. Carrying out an assessment of existing
fire compartments will also identify any pre existing breaches, which can be an issue in buildings that are older. When an amount of refurbishment work has been carried out, it is common for the original plans to be out of date and certainly not reflective of the current state of the fire compartments. A detailed survey is the only way to ascertain the true condition of the fire compartments, and this usually includes the location and condition of compartmentation, a record of penetrations and a recommendation of remediation works. The benefit of this is that it can form the basis of a working document for use alongside costing exercises and planning for any remediation fire stopping works. This approach helps to make the best use of available resources and ensures that critical safety aspects such as fire stops are given the priority they deserve.
Common issues
Although there are many issues that arise with compartments due to service apertures
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