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FIRE PROTECTION & SECURITY
No smoke without fire Dave Walker, Technical Director of Distinction Doors, stockist and distributor of the fds (fire door systems), discusses the importance of effective fire door maintenance programmes and the Smoke Control Update, which in 2022 will require certification for doorsets to include smoke control. ire safety is probably the biggest housing maintenance and management concern for Registered Providers. Earlier this year it was reported that London’s biggest housing associations expect to spend almost £3bn over the next decade making safe those buildings with dangerous cladding. The G15, a collective of London’s 12 biggest social landlords which own and manage over 600,000 homes, estimate a spend of £2.9bn on fire remediation. This will cover the cost of removing and replacing the cladding, insulation and cavity barriers on buildings taller than 18 metres. While these figures now form part of a financial plan the knock-on for planned maintenance in existing and new-build social housing stock is significant. Peter Benz, Director of Finance at Network Homes, says: “The effect of introducing this into our medium-term financial plan is substantial. It means we have fewer resources available to invest in our existing stock. We have recast our planned maintenance programme to ensure that sufficient resources are available to maintain our homes at a decent standard, but it has had the consequence of deferring some planned maintenance work and displaced some discretionary work.” (source: socialhousing.co.uk) This is a concern. Nowhere more so than the maintenance of other fire safety
It is essential that only tried, tested and proven fire safety products are procured and installed correctly across all housing
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LAs and HAs should seek fire door installation companies that meet the requirements of Q-Mark STD 052
has declared that in “itsSBD opinion guidance for doorset threshold testing is unacceptable in the real world…
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products, for example entrance fire doors. Due to some performance issues identified post-Grenfell, it is understood that like cladding, insulation and cavity barriers, many fire entrance doors in high-rise buildings will also need replacing, at vast expense.
With housing maintenance and management departments facing serious financial constraints it is more important than ever that only tried, tested and proven fire safety products are procured and installed correctly across all housing stock.
Trusted testing Fire doorsets, for example, should be third party tested and certificated using an independent United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) accredited test house. Proof of independent thirdparty testing offers reassurance to all stakeholders, demonstrating that the
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