News

Fire Safety in the Home

Great article about making sure you stay safe at home during this difficult time and take fire safety precautions. Please remember the basics like not overloading electrical sockets, take care when cooking (don’t leave unattended), testing your smoke alarms and keeping doors closed at night. Make sure you and your family have a simple escape plan in the event of a fire. If you would like a copy of our tenant information guide which gives basic fire safety advice in your flat or home please email me at

New fire safety bill

Good to see the introduction of the new fire safety bill. The main focus moving forward will be in ensuring the safety of the external structure and walls to residential buildings. There will also be much more focus on fire doors to flats leading into communal areas. Going to be some very challenging times ahead with the current situation and ensuring the fire safety of our buildings is not compromised with any shortcomings in funding.

Hotel Fire Safety Failures

Hotel in East Sussex fails fire safety inspection and now has to make major changes.

By having a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment completed this could all have been avoided.

Remember the assessment can be a work in progress with the most important work carried out sooner than the lower risk items depending on the findings and the particular risk.

https://lnkd.in/giJTwzC

https://lnkd.in/gtAC7-z

Kemptown hotel fails fire safety check

brightonandhovenews.org

External Facade Fire Safety

More money being poured into the removal of dangerous cladding. Good to see.

If you have been trying to sell your flat and have been asked to carry out a fire risk assessment to include checking the exterior facade of the building including checking the wooden balconies etc please get in touch. There are so many different construction materials out there it is a minefield but there are lots of things to consider when carrying out an assessment. This includes looking at where your vulnerable residents reside in the building, the height of the building, where the kitchens are in relation to the exterior wall, safe use of balconies, establishing the materials that have been used and many many more factors.

https://lnkd.in/eu4DdJ2

https://lnkd.in/eiSWx_F

Budget 2020: £1bn fund to strip cladding from tall buildings

theguardian.com

Hospital Fire

Sometimes it takes a fire before deficiencies within a building are identified which is what happened at this Bristol Hospital.

Thankfully everybody was safely evacuated but what we try and achieve with a fire risk assessment is a two stage process. Firstly to do everything we can to stop a fire happening in the first place through a range of fire safety precautions and systems. Then secondly to put policies and procedures in place to ensure that if a fire does happen everybody can get out safely.

https://lnkd.in/gFUHK6K

https://lnkd.in/g5nrzZc

Bristol hospital trust cautioned over fire at oncology department

bristolpost.co.uk

Waking Watch Alternatives

You can only read the start of this story without subscribing to the Times but it’s what is happening up and down the county with buildings deemed to have unsafe cladding. The cost of the waking watch are phenomenal and owners of the buildings are being asked to pay despite having done nothing wrong when purchasing these properties.

Personally I think there are most cost effective options than waking watches with the Fire Service often requesting these without taking into account all the facts. What we are looking for here are temporary solutions to speed up an evacuation should a fire develop past a single flat or onto the exterior of the building.

You have to consider where the kitchens are in relation to the exterior walls and balconies, the number of floors, number of escape staircases, suppression and smoke vent systems etc.

Like when carrying out a fire risk assessment, it’s easy to write onerous recommendations to cover yourself and then forget all about who has to pay for them. Lets get back to a risk based approach where we work with our clients and can consider lower cost and more common sense options with no sacrifice to safety.

Grenfell cladding scandal: all flat owners may have to pay for safety report before they can sell

thetimes.co.uk

Whale Fire News

During these crazy times, if you ever fancy catching up on some fire safety news and reading some of my posts aimed at putting the client first please click on this link below.