Fire Compartmentation and Passive Fire Survey
Gain insight into your building's capability of passive fire protection measures
What is a Fire Compartmentation and Passive Fire Survey?
A compartmentation survey is a detailed inspection of a premise that identifies the buildings’ condition and capability of passive fire protection measures. All premises are designed and built to provide protection to the building’s users and restrict the spread of fire and smoke through the subdivision of the building.
Protection of escape routes, high-value items and high-risk areas can prevent injury or loss of life to the building occupants and can prevent financial losses and negative publicity to any organisation. Compartmentalisation is achieved by using materials and which will resist the effects of fire, heat and smoke and maintain their integrity for a defined period. The main building components which provide passive fire protection in buildings include fire doors, dividing walls, ceilings and floors, glazed panels, fire curtains, fire and smoke dampers etc. The performance of these components in the event of a fire is crucial to ensuring the safety of the occupants and integrity of the building structure, allowing sufficient time for people to escape.
A compartmentation survey will use the fire strategy plan to confirm and identify the fire ratings of these elements and then assess the condition and current ability of these materials to prevent fire and smoke spread. This is done by detailing any breaches or lack of any existing fire protection and assessing the effectiveness of the measures in place, such as the fire stopping techniques and materials used to reinstate any damaged areas or seal existing penetrations.
Why choose Sircle?
We have a skilled team of surveyors experienced in both Fire Safety and Building Surveying. This knowledge helps us to understand the building construction detail and the fire safety strategy implemented in different types of premises.
Having insight into how the passive fire safety measures, design of the building, and other fire safety precautions in place help underpin and support the fire strategy is of benefit when completing these surveys. It also allows us to effectively report and identify the risk of each finding and how these contribute to the overall premises risk.
During our fire compartmentation surveys, we identify and record any issues found, along with their precise location, axis, fire rating, material, item or service causing the issue or breach. We will then offer more detail on the problem, take photographs, prioritise the risk, and recommend a suitable course of remedial action.
We gather and record this data using the latest Bolster software, which we have invested a lot of time and effort into customising.
Our data capture fields are thorough and consistent and provide valuable insight into the causes of the compartmentation breaches and the impact on the building’s safety and ability to perform as intended in a fire scenario.
All of our surveys are accompanied by a professional report which provides a key summary of the survey findings along with visual representation via charts, graphs, pivot tables and excel spreadsheets which allow our clients to quickly identify any areas of immediate concern allowing responsible persons the ability to efficiently plan the allocation of resources and prioritisation of risk management. This clarity on the building’s condition and compliance will help inform any strategic decisions and prioritise programmes of work.
Each report contains a snapshot of each issue documented on the survey in a clear format with photographic, time-stamped evidence and a unique ID number. This data can be used to audit any of the findings and any follow-up work required from initial survey identification right through to the signing off of any completed remedial works through a live client portal.
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Chatham House, in partnership with IEM
Chatham House engaged with IEM to support the delivery of building compliance. There were several compliance areas that were lacking in terms of condition and detail.
Chatham House“Sircle were recommended to us by other local trusts, and, following a successful tender process, won the contract to provide us with survey, CAD. data capture and fire services. Their unique ability to provide a wide range of complimentary services, and willingness to work with our other key suppliers, has made them invaluable to us and our estate maintenance programme.”
West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust
