Fire Risk Assessment.

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lyledunn:

Whatever part of the U.K. you are in, the law places emphasis on the need for fire risk assessment to be suitable and sufficient. That would imply that the person conducting it would need to have adequate skills, knowledge and experience to ensure that it was indeed suitable and sufficient.

 

So, how can I confirm the assessor's competence and experience? Or are they like P.A.Testing people, well meaning but semi experienced and semi-skilled in many cases.


Z.

How can you describe ex-Fire Officers like that?


The landlord’s can do their own fire risk assessment and so long as they do a reasonable job everything will be okay 


I have been present quite a few times doing electrical inspections and testing whilst a fire risk assessment is being prepared by an assessor, I have had many conversations with the fire risk assessors because our work overlaps, particularly regards emergency lighting and fire alarms, indeed we often end up putting matching observations on all of our  reports, the EICR, fire alarm inspection certificate, emergency lighting inspection certificate and fire risk assessment.


At one job in a HMO over shops the fire risk assessor arrived after me and rang the bell to get me to let him in, I greeted him at the door and said “it’s failed”  the fire risk assessor laughed and said “I know, I spotted the final exit emergency light over this door is smashed whilst getting out of my car”.


It is not rocket science, in many cases it’s just about being able to spot what should be totally obvious to people, but they cannot see what is in front of them or choose to ignore it, going back to that HMO the lobby inside the final exit door and the landing had bicycles and push chairs that were being stored by tenants in the communal areas, there were missing alarms, tenants cooking in their rooms because the kitchen facilities were inadequate, and so it goes on.


The fire risk assessor and myself were only there because the City Council had done a spot check and were threatening to throw the book at the landlord and in reality most of what we put in our reports were totally obvious even to someone without training.

Zoomup:

lyledunn:

Whatever part of the U.K. you are in, the law places emphasis on the need for fire risk assessment to be suitable and sufficient. That would imply that the person conducting it would need to have adequate skills, knowledge and experience to ensure that it was indeed suitable and sufficient.

 

So, how can I confirm the assessor's competence and experience? Or are they like P.A.Testing people, well meaning but semi experienced and semi-skilled in many cases.


Z.

How can you describe ex-Fire Officers like that?


The landlord’s can do their own fire risk assessment and so long as they do a reasonable job everything will be okay 


I have been present quite a few times doing electrical inspections and testing whilst a fire risk assessment is being prepared by an assessor, I have had many conversations with the fire risk assessors because our work overlaps, particularly regards emergency lighting and fire alarms, indeed we often end up putting matching observations on all of our  reports, the EICR, fire alarm inspection certificate, emergency lighting inspection certificate and fire risk assessment.


At one job in a HMO over shops the fire risk assessor arrived after me and rang the bell to get me to let him in, I greeted him at the door and said “it’s failed”  the fire risk assessor laughed and said “I know, I spotted the final exit emergency light over this door is smashed whilst getting out of my car”.


It is not rocket science, in many cases it’s just about being able to spot what should be totally obvious to people, but they cannot see what is in front of them or choose to ignore it, going back to that HMO the lobby inside the final exit door and the landing had bicycles and push chairs that were being stored by tenants in the communal areas, there were missing alarms, tenants cooking in their rooms because the kitchen facilities were inadequate, and so it goes on.


The fire risk assessor and myself were only there because the City Council had done a spot check and were threatening to throw the book at the landlord and in reality most of what we put in our reports were totally obvious even to someone without training.