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Fire Risk Assessment.

Zoomup
Good morning all,


 What qualifications does a fire risk assessor have to have to be competent, and to be able to comply legally with his designs for fire alarm systems etc?


My customer is getting in a bloke to carry out a fire risk assessment prior to installing smoke/heat/CO alarms in a rental holiday cottage.


Can just any old unqualified body claim to be a fire risk assessor, like estate agents that need no formal qualifications?


Thanks,


Z.
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    The Design of Fire Detection Installations for Dwellings. A Guide to BS 5839-6 (second edition) Paperback – 1 Sept. 2004




    by Colin Todd (Author)


     

    The Design, Installation, Commissioning and Maintenance of Fire Detection and Fire Alarm Systems. A Guide to BS 5839-1 Paperback – 1 Oct. 2008




    by Colin S Todd  (Author)

     

    The BS 9999 Handbook. Effective fire safety in the design, management and use of buildingsPaperback – 31 May 2010




    by Michael Green (Author), Jonathan Joinson (Author)



    Amazon says I bought those books in September 2012, nine years ago and I have just shown my wife what Amazon values them at, she wants to know if I’m going to sell them and if my bookcase that she has muttered about for years is going to turn out to be my pension fund.


    They were all published by the British Standards Institution, but there doesn’t seem to be revisions to cover the current regulations. However they are still very good boos that explain why there are the requirements.
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    I’m not sure why I ended up with the BS9999 Guide Book, the BSI says:


    It is not applicable to individual dwelling-houses, and might have only limited applicability to certain specialist buildings and areas of buildings (e.g. hospitals and areas of lawful detention).
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    This is where we probably need a comment from the forum moderator, the most up to date guide book is the new IET Electricians Guide which is due to be published in around three weeks from now.


    I know Zoomup likes preordering books from the IET and has every confidence that they will actually arrive ?


    It is on a third party website, but I cannot find it on the IET Bookshop site.

    https://www.wiringregulations.net/pub/electricians-guide-to-fire-detection-and-alarm-systems-9781785616747.aspx
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    The report a post form says it cannot be used for communicating with the moderator, so unless my comment about Zoomup and IET books is offensive I need to find another means of communication ?
  • 0
    I remember why I ended up with a copy of the BS9999 Guide Book.


    Offices being converted into flats with a huge internal window between the main staircase for the flats and the stairs of adjoining offices, I was told the last time a fire officer inspected the building he said there would always have to be a single alarm for both parts of the building because of the layout and construction despite being in separate ownership.


    I did not do the fire risk assessment for the building, but I did design the standalone Part 6 systems within the seven flats and  made recommendations about the communal area and whole building alarm system being upgraded with heat detectors being installed in the protected lobby of each of the flats, nine years later the alarm system has been replaced in the offices leaving the communal areas of the flats without an alarm system at all. 


    I see these things going on and politely make suggestions and advice, ultimately though it’s not my problem if someone decides to remove a separate alarm system over five years after I completed my work, but I am careful when writing up certificates to ensure I state exactly what I did do and to recommend what should be done by others.
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    Having access to the suite of British Standards that a competent fire risk assessor should have is an expensive business indeed. That, along with the myriad of other guidance documents means a ponderous mass of detail to sift. We do projects across Ireland and occasionally on your side of the pond. It is beyond frustrating the lack of harmony that exists in Building Regulations between the home nations never mind in the approach to fire safety in existing premises. 

    To ease my way through the maze, many years ago, I commenced an Autocad file in which I sketched some of the main issues that I would commonly wrestle with. So for BS5839-1 2017, for example I have visual representation of key considerations such as details relating to the spacing of detectors including the revised approach to detectors in voids over 800mm. 

    We use PAS79 as our FRA methodology, adapted to suit our area of operation which is mostly in the hospitality industry. However, even with a fairly narrow business focus, the plethora of documents that I need to be familiar with often seems needlessly oppressive. On top of all that I have to keep up to speed with BS7671 2018 and the Irish IS1010-1 2020.
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    Sorry, I pressed the post button before I had finished! I was going to say that, despite the flying fur in another post about the competence of electrical inspectors, if I were asked to recruit fire risk assessors for further training, it would be to the pool of electrical inspectors that I would direct my attention and not to the fraternity recently retired from the fire and rescue service!
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    Zoomup:

    Good morning all,


     What qualifications does a fire risk assessor have to have to be competent, and to be able to comply legally with his designs for fire alarm systems etc?



    Z.




    The fire risk assessor specifies the grade and types of alarm system, they don’t design the layout and electrical installation.


  • 0
    Sparkingchip:
    Zoomup:

    Good morning all,


     What qualifications does a fire risk assessor have to have to be competent, and to be able to comply legally with his designs for fire alarm systems etc?



    Z.




    The fire risk assessor specifies the grade and types of alarm system, they don’t design the layout and electrical installation.




    This subject is just too complicated for me. I will delegate all responsibility for design to A.N. Other-Specialist. I will just concern myself with the actual installation.


    Z.


  • 0
    Zoomup:

    This subject is just too complicated for me. I will delegate all responsibility for design to A.N. Other-Specialist. I will just concern myself with the actual installation.


    If you are accepting responsibility for the FIre Risk Assessment and delegating it, you need to be clear where the liability lies - yours or your subcontractors. The PI insurance required for a FRA is significant, and normally not covered by a standard policy. You may even find it is excluded by the small print in your existing policy. 


    Regards,


    Alan. 


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