FEATURE HEALTHY WORKING ENVIRONMENTS
Protect Your Investments
Image courtesy OHRA
Warehouses and storage facilities house valuable stock and machinery, so a wellprotected property against fire is crucial. Iain Cox, chair of the Business Sprinkler Alliance, explains how his organisation can help.
T
he past 25 years have seen the construction of a huge
likely to have more of that asset left afterwards. A well-protected property
number of new buildings. Yet, questions remain regarding
therefore has an intrinsic value.
fire safety features and strategies within many of these
Automatic fire sprinklers are not widely used in the UK partly because
properties. One has to question why fire safety has
the regulatory guidance rarely prescribes their use and partly because even
not been held in the same regard as a buildings design,
when prescribed they are often ‘value engineered’ out. Yet automatic fire
aesthetics or ‘green’ credentials.
sprinklers prevent large fires because they activate automatically over a
The optimistic belief that a fire “will not happen to me” could explain
fire, controlling or even extinguishing the blaze before the Fire and Rescue
why businesses are not always considering the real impact of fire and its
Service arrives. They therefore protect the lives of those in the building and
consequences. They underestimate the direct financial impact on both the
the firefighters who attend an incident – but they also prevent significant
property and the business, and the time it takes to recover from a fire.
damage or destruction of a building by fire.
This all can have an impact on business value over time. A business property
The misconception surrounding the cost of sprinkler systems can be
that is well-protected in terms of fire protection and safety will have a far
dispelled by looking at the true costs of a building over its lifespan. Some would
greater intrinsic value, yet the ‘market’ does not seem to value this.
say that if a fire does not happen the cost of the sprinkler system has been
When you look at the value of a property, it’s important to think about
wasted. Why, for example, deliver a warehouse, factory or school as cheaply as
performance over time. We use metrics, data and evaluations to do this.
possible but leave out fire safety measures – only to find five years later it is lost
However how does this include considering risk and events that may happen,
completely due to a fire event, resulting in greater costs? This goes back to a
like fire. Compare this to an EPC rating, which is seen as a key indicator of
fundamental issue, that owners are perhaps not fully considering the potential
energy efficiency of a building and energy costs. This information has to be
for a fire during the life of a building. It is often manifested in not valuing what
provided when a property is sold. The lack of a rating would be questioned,
they own in terms of the potential to replace property and thinking that they
and the value of the property is impacted if the information isn’t provided.
are going to recover from a fire a lot quicker than they do. We need to place risk
The same is not always true for fire safety, there are no fire safety
into context and understand the impact, so that what is at stake is understood
ratings of buildings. If fire safety information is not available it does not
and planned for appropriately. Clear outcomes in the face of fire can then be
always lead to questions. It should do and this is perhaps a more prominent
defined. An inescapable item is that the inclusion of a sprinkler system can
item for certain buildings today. Fundamentally we need to be asking how
prevent major financial and equipment losses, containing what could be a
the building delivers fire safety and is protected against such events, and
potential major disaster and ensuring it is only a minor inconvenience.
where is the information to support this? This should become a valuable
Fire is indiscriminate and inexplicable, but that doesn’t mean actions
piece of information for any owner and similarly have a negative impact on
can’t be taken to prevent and control it when it occurs. As warehouses and
the value if not provided across all buildings.
similar industrial buildings are likely to proliferate in the coming years, now is
For example, if a building has sprinklers, fire alarms, documented
the time to think of how, and why, we should protect these valuable assets
maintenance, plans etc and another does not have sprinklers then the
which may not be glamorous, but nonetheless are vital as part of the UK’s
sprinkler-protected building is clearly worth more. If nothing else it has more
business infrastructure. Protecting the value of such properties and those
equipment. The value of that equipment can be seen functionally but it is
who work within them.
also an investment in terms of fire safety and protection of the property over More at www.business-sprinkler-alliance.org
time. A sprinkler investment means that if anything goes wrong, then you’re Timber Trader UK Magazine
Summer 2022
32
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