We have recently purchased a flat, and to be fair, as we dig deeper into renovation, there are a number of things about it that concern me. One relates to the fire alarm system which is the kind with a simple panel in the hallway, and sensors and sounders in each of the 20 or so flats in the building and the common area.
To set the scene the building is brick built, solid walls converted Victorian school type of thing, and it looks rather as if at no time in the last 20 years has any person working on it in any way missed any opportunity to cut corners, use the wrong coloured bricks, confuse mortar with cement, put woodscrews instead of bolts in the switch pattresses etc. so the warning signs are there.
Our flat is ground floor, and our ceiling is uneven, now very obvious after the removal of partition walls due to a damp problem that required removal of the floor and filling with cement. but that is not this question. In any case the ceiling is made of a frame of 2*4 timbers clad in double plasterboard. In some cases this is below the floorboards of the flat above by about 3 feet, in other places more like a foot (the word 'uneven' does not really accurately capture the full condition, every cupboard and room seems to have been done by different teams who never met or looked in the other rooms, nor indeed possessed a working spirit level). This means there is a large irregular height void that as far as I can tell peering through some holes in ceiling where we have removed the previous owners light fittings , has no lagging or fire detection in the void, just a clear view up to the remains of a victorian lath and plaster ceiling where most of it is missing, though the few remaining laths support T and E wiring to the flat above, whose floor boards are mostly visible.
Am I right in assuming this is not really to current fire standards ?
How should the ceiling have been constructed, I presume fire integrity, sound proofing and thermal isolation should all come into it, and what arrangements should prevent or warn about a fire in the space between us and and the
Should there be detection in the void ?
The free holders are a company that work through an agent, and the whole thing is quite tedious as they are very good at claiming that anyone else is responsible but them so I'd like my ducks in a row before going all para legal.
