FOCUS
Plan and protect John Newbury looks at the importance of
protecting historic and heritage structures during refurbishment works
I
RRESPECTIVE OF how old or grand a heritage building is, it is not immune to fire. Recent incidents, including the fire at Notre-Dame and the Glasgow School of Art, have illustrated how vulnerable buildings are when work takes place. Unfortunately, it is still the case that the permanently wired fi re alarm is often disconnected during refurbishment work. The only good thing to come from these
two devasting fires, and others, is that they highlight just how important it is to have a temporary wireless fi re alarm system in place during refurbishment work.
There for a reason
All too often, decision makers fail to take into consideration the increased risks of fi re during refurbishment – welding, hot works, grinding and cutting all create incendiary opportunities. This is false economy, as the cost of repairing fi re damage even on an unlisted building is very costly and results in severe project delays for the client. If existing legislative guidance for fire alarms on construction and refurbishment
24 APRIL 2020
www.frmjournal.com
projects were followed, it would dramatically improve fi re safety and prevent many incidents from escalating to something far worse. Fire Prevention on Construction Sites: The Joint Code of Practice on the Protection from Fire of Construction Sites and Buildings Undergoing Renovation (JCOP) created a step change in fi re safety on site by clarifying the need for an EN 54 compliant fi re alarm system. Version nine of JCOP contains the advice
that ‘components of automatic fire detection and alarm systems should be marked as complying with EN 54’ (paragraph 13.8), and while JCOP is not prescriptive about whether the system should be wired or wireless, the latter offers signifi cant benefi ts because it is easy to set up, requiring no specialist trades, and avoids trailing electrical cables and drilling holes in listed or historic structures. Since publication of that version, leading
insurers for the construction sector have made it clear that there is an ‘expectation that customers comply with JCOP guidelines as far as is practicable and reasonable’. This means there is an expectation that all construction
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