Our First Fire Safety Audit - Fire Risk Assessment
Three Pieces of Information We Can Pick Up on Right Away.
Even though the Fire Risk Assessment law was passed 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 article. So we know:
1. The inspection is called a Fire Safety Audit.
2. 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.
3. Which is not so obvious as only I know, and that is it was not the same Fire Inspector who carried out the second audit.
More about the third point when I address the second audit.
The Out Come
Our main means of escape in-case of a fire, as it is in most cases, is our stairs and landings which should be free of any kinds 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 we think about what could happen in the event of a fire, by our Fire Inspector. While 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 were removed.
* We've striped all the original pitch pine doors, from when the building was erected in 1872, 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 an 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, etc.
We replaced the door.
* He then mentioned what he regarded as something that is rife in a great deal of different types of buildings; pinning back doors. People make sure all fire doors are closed because the Fire Inspectors coming and when he leaves they pin them back again. I must hold my hands up here, our sitting room and dinning room doors with all the coming and going in these two areas we tend to 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 owner or the person responsible of the building is that they have full responsibility for what they enter in their fire risk assessment; 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 and if they had trouble with a key they may also have trouble with the device he suggested. 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 in the building too 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 article.
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