Following months of wrangling, Building Control have made a final determination on the acceptability of fitting 90min fire rated downlights in a 90min Fire rated ceiling in the bedrooms of a hotel in a former office building. They have determined that the situation is unacceptable. I believe they are correct. This is a mighty blow to the contractor and developer as we are talking 70 rooms. However, we had advised that the ceilings should not be penetrated and that services and lighting should have been installed below the compartment ceiling. This would have required a lower ceiling which, of course, would have been expensive but not half as expensive as the required corrective measures. So check with BC before drilling!
Had this been a single family dwelling I imagine BC may have adopted a more flexible approach. A 6-storey hotel in an old office building which had wooden floors under drawn by lathe and plaster in very poor condition is a different matter.
The new MF ceilings were erected as per specification and the design required a lower false ceiling over parts of the periphery of the room to accommodate lighting. For whatever reason this was not done and the downlights were inserted in the fire rated ceiling. Despite warnings of impending problems at an early stage, all rooms were completed that way.
All avenues were explored including hoods but the key point is that the ceiling is declared 90min by British Gypsum under very strict construction criteria. Any alterations to the criteria on site means that the test conditions the ceiling was subject to have altered thus voiding the declaration.
We could have a mock up tested but that is likely to be as expensive in terms of cost and time as remedial work would be.
Had this been a single family dwelling I imagine BC may have adopted a more flexible approach. A 6-storey hotel in an old office building which had wooden floors under drawn by lathe and plaster in very poor condition is a different matter.
The new MF ceilings were erected as per specification and the design required a lower false ceiling over parts of the periphery of the room to accommodate lighting. For whatever reason this was not done and the downlights were inserted in the fire rated ceiling. Despite warnings of impending problems at an early stage, all rooms were completed that way.
All avenues were explored including hoods but the key point is that the ceiling is declared 90min by British Gypsum under very strict construction criteria. Any alterations to the criteria on site means that the test conditions the ceiling was subject to have altered thus voiding the declaration.
We could have a mock up tested but that is likely to be as expensive in terms of cost and time as remedial work would be.
