Apr
30
Fire Assessment Equipment
April 30, 2011 | 1 Comment
If you only have a small business, do you have to have a full Fire Alarm System installed for your fire assessment.
From an accommodation providers point of view, which the government thinks is that important they’ve created a separate booklet just for the accommodation sector called:
‘Fire Safety Risk Assessment Sleeping Accommodation’
I run a 9 bed roomed guest house. When the old Fire Certificate System (what was issued by your local fire brigade before the new Fire Risk Assessment laws) was in place you could trade with 6 bed spaces as long as they where not above the first floor; not rooms, bed spaces. So if you had two double rooms and two single rooms on the first floor you didn’t need a Fire Certificate, however if you had three doubles and a single room you would have to have one.
Enter your email on the right for a free copy of our Fire Risk Assessment that will help you create your own.
Consequently as we grew we installed a full alarm system and I must admit Fire Inspectors like to see a full system installed.
But what about the lady down the road who takes in one or two guest in the week to help with the bills.
I put that question to our local Fire Inspector when he came to view our Fire Risk Assessment for the first time, his answer was.
“No, but I’d like to see fire doors off the main means of escape and connecting smoke detectors in each room”
The main means of escape would be her stairs and landings; so every bedroom off that area, except for the bathroom, which is seen as low risk, would have to have a fire door fitted. The connecting smoke detectors seem a big job but the Fire Inspector did indicate that the wire connecting the detectors could be surface mounted where as in a full system to would be covered.
It must be said that under the old system there was a gap that needed plunging, up to 6 people sleeping over night in a building their not familiar with and no fire precautions in place was not very safe.
Apr
30
Your Fire Risk Assessment and Fire Fighting
April 30, 2011 | 2 Comments
Our staff training relates to fire fighting if it’s safe to do so, and what to do in the event of a fire, within a building that has sleeping accommodation; an area of fire safety which the government recognized as being so important they created a guide just for this sector.
‘ Fire Safety Risk Assessment Sleeping Accommodation’.
So although the measures may seem extreme the training relates to most businesses.
Once you’ve produce your Fire Risk Assessment, the next official contact with the local fire brigade will be a phone call from the local Fire Inspector; he will introduce him self and arrange a date to call round and carry out a Fire Safety Audit on you Fire risk Assessment; the time between the phone call and the actual audit is around 20 days.
Part of your Fire Risk Assessment should show records of Staff Training weather it be 1 person or 50.
Staff training should consist of:
- Action to be taken on discovering a fire.
- Action to be taken on hearing a fire alarm.
- Raising the alarm, including the location of alarm call points.
- Correct method of calling the fire service.
- Location and use of fire fighting equipment.
- Knowledge of escape routes
- Appreciating the importance of fire-resisting doors and the need to close all doors at the time of a fire and on hearing the fire alarm.
- Stopping machines and processes and isolating power supplies where appropriate.
- Evacuating the building (including arrangements for assisting members of the public who may be unfamiliar with the premises).
- Fire Drill.
Action to be taken on discovering a fire
There’s a set procedure for each bullet point
- Raise the alarm by operating the nearest fire alarm call point
- Attack the fire with the equipment provided if it is safe to do so.
- Assist guests to the assembly point in the car park.
In order for the above to be put into action the staff have to know:
- Where the call points are and how to use them.
- How to turn off any cookers or ovens.
- And make sure they need to shut doors after them.
The majority of solutions sound as if there just common sense, like how to turn off an oven, and so they are, but no matter how obvious it seems show your staff how it’s done, then more importantly make sure they sign a document that say’s they’ve been shown each procedure. In the event of a fire this could be crucial that the owner has the signed document.
Action to be taken on hearing a fire alarm.
- Assist guests to the assembly point in the car park.
- Turn off cookers and ovens.
- Close all doors.
Raising the alarm.
- Operate the nearest fire alarm call point.
- Call the fire brigade
Correct method of calling the fire service
- Dial 999
- Give the operator the phone number of the building
- When the fire brigade answers speak distinctly
- Fire at: Give the address of building
All this information should be given to your staff, make sure they know the phone number of the building, make sure they know the full address. Yes they know how to get to work and if some one was to ask them where they worked they could probably describe to them where it is.
But the fire brigade will want the full address including a location, on the corner of.
Location and use of fire fighting equipment
Again they must be shown where the fire fighting equipment is.
In most cases of ‘use of fire fighting equipment’ relates to a fire extinguisher.
You don’t want to go about letting off fire extinguisher here, there and every where to show your staff how they work, they can be told verbally, and it’ll cost you a lot of money. There’s nothing like the real thing and it’s been know for people to drop them when the force is released.
Big tip here.
As part of your Fire Risk Assessment you have to have a fire extinguisher maintenance contract in place which your Fire Inspector will want to see when he calls to do a Fire Safety Audit.
Every so often the engineer that calls will refill or check the pressure just to make sure everything working how it should be.
Just ask him to show a couple of members of staff how to use them while he’s doing his adjusting. (in my experience, they love showing you)
this can then be entered in your Fire Risk Assessment as fire fighting training in your staff training section.
If you would like a copy of any of the documents I’ve mentioned, any of the staff signs we use or a copy of the official notification we where sent for our Fire Safety Audit just click the link and I’ll email them over, all for free.
You’ll also find coverage of the next 5 items in the ‘Staff training list.
Apr
19
If you run a business from a building in the U.K. you must have a Fire Risk Assessment and from time to time a Fire Inspector will carry out a Fire Safety Audit. Having had two audits carried out myself, it looks as though they’ll be carried out every two years.
If you would like a free copy of our Fire Risk Assessment procedure that was given the ok by our Fire Inspector, which will enable you to create your own Fire Risk Assessment just click on the link.
You should have within your Fire Risk Assessment a section with the heading ‘Significant Findings’.
The Fire Risk Assessment law is relatively new, being past in 2005 and introduce in 2006. It’s becoming obvious that the ‘Significant Findings” section of a Fire Risk Assessment will in time become the most important part of the assessment and will be highly scrutinized by your Fire Inspector.
Changes to Your Fire Risk Assessment
Just to be clear, it must be said that each component of a Fire Risk Assessment is as important as the next; however once each component is in position, alarm maintenance, staff signage, staff training programs, fire extinguisher maintenance ect, the changes will be minimal.
Not so with the Significant Findings section of a Fire Risk Assessment. This is the component that your Fire Inspector will be most interested in when he comes to carry out a Fire Safety Audit because it will be the section that changes the most.
What are Significant Findings in Your Fire Risk Assessment
To give you an example here’s one of the Significant Findings we entered in the Significant Findings section of our Fire Risk Assessment.
In our Guest House we have 4 paneled, pitch pine, doors which we striped then brought up to 30 minute fire resistance by installing intumisent seals with smoke brushes around the door edges and painted the room side of the door with intumisent varnish.
Although the doors where within fire regulations standers, when our Fire Inspector came to do a Fire Safety Audit he said they where fine but suggested we may want to think about the most important fire door in the house and installing a purpose made, new, fire door.
Our most important fire door, as it is in most businesses that have a working kitchen, is the kitchen door it’s self; especially in our case because the kitchen door is off one of our main means of escape in case of a fire. Also within our kitchen is the entrance to a utility room so with both areas having a number of sauces of ignition:
- 2 Washers (Laundry)
- Dryer
- Toaster
- Large Gas Grill
- Gas cooker
- Microwave
- Dishwasher
- 2 Fridges
Fire Risk Assessment, Entering Significant Findings
The number of sauces of ignition together with a precedence of years of statistics that tell you most fires start in the kitchen; with one of the main causes in commercial kitchens being some what inaccessible (a build up of grease in the extraction system over the cooker, which should be industrially cleaned on a regular bases depending on the amount of traffic) the decision was made to change the door as the Fire Inspector suggested.
How it was Entered
Date: Date of change
- Replaced kitchen door with new oak (our preference) 30 minute fire resistant door.
- Including Intumisent seals with brushes.
- Refitted door closer.
- Fitted new automatic wireless operated door stop which reacts to fire alarm sounding.
- Fitted new fire door signs to both sides of door.
“fitted new fire door to kitchen”.
The more precise you are the better it will be when it comes to your Fire Safety Audit.
Apr
1
Fire Risk Assessment, Our Second Fire Safety Audit
April 1, 2011 | 1 Comment
As with our first Fire Safety Audit, the Fire Inspector called by phone to make an appointment in order to carry out are second Fire Safety Audit; unlike the old fire certificate rules where the Fire Officer phoned the day befor he was due.
The call came on the 1st March for an appointment on the 23rd of March; and although not intended, because everything in your Fire Risk Assessment should be in place, it does give you over 20 days to carry out any work you may deem necessary.
again unlike the old Fire Certificate system where you had the feeling the Fire Officer was trying to catch you out.
The audit began with a thorough inspection of our Fire Risk Assessment weather that was because it was the first time this particular Inspector had visited the building before or not I’m not sure, something tells me in the future, if the same inspector calls, the main part of inspecting your Fire Risk Assessment will be the ‘Significant Findings’ section.
As it was, all was well, he then went on to view our fire alarm and fire extinguisher maintenance documents which where all up to date.
Helpful Tips from the Fire Inspector
Once the inspection was more or less over we just talked about the procedures I was using that was when he offered me a few tips
- We have a maintenance contract for our alarm system, however I set up a rotor to test each individual smoke detector, bell & emergency lighting unit.
The fire inspector told me because I have a maintenance contract I only have to keep a record of checking my break glass call points and the emergency lighting units once a month,
the rest off the system is the responsibility of the maintenance contractors . - If you have an employee their supposed to know what to do in the event of a fire so make sure your staff fire notices are in the right place,
the staff no the procedures and most of all I get them to sign to say they’ve received training.
- And here’s one from me. You must have a maintenance contract to check your Fire Extinguishers; you’ll find every so often they have to be refilled.
Ask the maintenance man if he finds he as to change the water in an extinguisher could he show a member of staff how to use one.
Mine was happy to do so.
Mar
29
Fire Safety Audit, Our First Fire Safety Audit
March 29, 2011 | 2 Comments
Our first Fire Safety Audit under the new Fire Risk Assessment laws was carried out in March 2009.
I’m not an expert in fire regulations, if you need to know about fire regulations just get in touch with your fire inspector he’s there to help you and at no cost what so ever.
What I do know something about is producing a Fire Risk Assessment and having two Fire Safety Audits carried out on our building. The first as I said in March 2009 and the second just recently on 23 March 2011.
Enter your email address on the right to download our Fire Risk Assessment Procedure that’s been given the thumbs up by our Fire Inspector and will enable you to create your own F.R.A.
Three pieces of information we can pick up on right away.
Even though the Fire Risk Assessment law was past in 2005 and introduce in 2006 our first Fire Safety Audit was three years after the law was introduce; which I would imagine was because of the time it took to cover all the buildings that came under the law in each council controlled area. Our second Audit was in March 2011 which I’ll go into in my next post.
- The inspection is called a Fire Safety Audit.
- It looks as though the Audits will be carried out every two years unless they introduce high and low risk properties in which case it may change.
- Which is not so obvious as only I know that it was not the same Fire Inspector who carried out the second Fire Safety Audit.
More about the third point when I address the second audit.
The Out Come
So here are the changes I carried out after the first audit:
- Our main means of escape, in-case of a fire, as in most cases is our stairs and landings which should be free of any kind of obstruction.
Our landings are quite large, more square than just a single passage. We kept a set of old pine draws on the top landing that encroached slightly into the entrance of one of the rooms, sounds odd but every one use to comment on these lovely old pine draws.
It was suggested by the Fire Inspector that we think about what could happen in the event of a fire.
When we put them on the landing I was thinking will it inhabit people entering the room; the Fire Inspector was thinking what will happen when some one is running out of the room into a smoked filled staircase and they run into the draws.The draws where removed.
- We striped the original pitch pine doors, from 1872, in all our rooms; and brought them up to half hour fire resistant by installing intumescent strips and coating the room side of the door with intumescent varnish; result lovely old striped pine fire doors.
The fire inspector looked them over and suggested I think about renewing the kitchen door for a up to-date purpose-built fire door because it is the most important fire door in the building, enclosing a number of possible sources of ignition, grill, oven, microwave ect.We replaced the door.
- He then mentioned what he regarded as something that is rife in a great deal of different types of buildings and that was pinning doors back.
People close doors because the Fire Inspectors coming and when he leaves they pin them back again.
I must hold my hands up here, only two doors, our sitting room and dinning room; with all the coming and going in these two areas we pin them back
until where locking up for the night. He went on to show me a battery operated device designed to hold open a fire door safely and legally that automatically releases the door on hearing the fire alarm.The best thing to come out of the audit.
We fitted them to both doors, which was really easy, they work very well and for peace of mind alone their great.
- Our main exit/entrance is the front door with a hallway that runs straight through the building to a back door.
The fire inspector noticed there was a mortise lock, with a key in, and two bolts top and bottom on the back door. He asked whether we left the key in the door at all times, I said yes.
He suggested I might want to think about what would happen if an old lady was trying to get out and couldn’t manage the key or the key went missing. He mentioned there was a product on the market called a thumb catch
which is a lock that is fit into a door like a engage sign on a loo door that just turns left and right to open and lock a door.You may have noticed that the Fire Inspector as been suggesting I take an other look at the situations or what do I think may happen if?
Under the new Fire Risk Assessment law that’s all their allowed to do, suggest a course of action you may want to take; not tell you what to do or make you do it; if they do that their taking on part of the responsibly
and the whole idea of a Fire Risk Assessment being created by the person responsible or owner of the building is they have full responsibility for what they enter in their Fire Risk Assessment and if there’s a fire and some one is injured or killed the full weight of the law will be applied to them and not the Fire Inspector.So what about the back door key; well I’ve stuck my neck out here; we have a precedence of the last 25 years where the key as not gone missing, we’ve been non smoking from day one and now it’s law, there’s also a security issue with removing the bolts, also any older person who are on there own are given a room on the ground floor next to the door in question.
So in this case we chose to go for higher security.
That was the result of our first audit, which was weighted towards us having to replace, renew or change thing around; all for the good we do live ion the building to and fire can and does kill.
The most resent Audit was more weighted towards saving us time and giving us some good advice.
Which I’ll let you know the out come in my next post.