Maintenance - Future Proof Your Building
Your passive fire protection requires regular inspection and maintenance just like your active fire systems and equipment. Maintenance of Passive Fire Protection measures must form part of the overall management of a building to ensure its fire protection measures are not at odds with the overall risk assessment and engineered design of the premises and its purpose. As such it is a requirement of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order Articles 17 and 38, that maintenance of all fire protection provisions be adequately maintained and monitored on a regular basis. It is also a requirement of BS 9999: 2017 and BS 8214 that all fire doors should be inspected on a 6 monthly basis. In particular, are the fire doors fit for purpose and all components in good working order? Is all fire stopping intact and in place? Have there been any breaches from services such as pipework, cabling, etc?
The fire protection measures within a building are mostly concerned with life safety, but additional aspects of the building may need to be considered such as normal business stoppage, environmental, business systems and contents, data loss, age of building, purpose of the building and its services.
The Responsible Person needs to be aware of these considerations, which should be contained within the Operations and Maintenance manual for the building. Such information within the O&M document for the building should cover products used, when installed, changes, repairs etc, providing a day to day running document health check for your buildings fire protection measures.
However, in order that adequate maintenance be provided for your building, a clear understanding of the fire strategy is needed. This information will be held within the fire strategy drawings and supporting documents provided at hand over. If no such fire strategy exists, then a full survey and report to determine the correct strategy / compartment lines will need to be completed in order that a maintenance plan and specification can be compiled, and all compartment lines be investigated to produce a comprehensive survey of the building's passive fire protection measures.