Wishing all our Customers a happy Easter.
Please note our office will be closed from Friday 15th April at 1pm, we will reopen on Monday 25th at 8.30am.
Fire Door Safety Week - 24th September - 30th September 2018
A door’s a door’s a door, right? No, a fire door is an engineered safety device.
Fire doors are a crucial part of the passive fire protection of every commercial, public and multiple occupancy building. They save lives and property.
There are about 3 million new fire doors bought and installed every year in the UK, the vast majority made from timber. Fire doors are often the first line of defence in a fire and their correct specification, maintenance and management can be the difference between life and death for building occupants. However, they remain a significant area of neglect, often the first thing to be downgraded on a specification and mismanaged throughout their service life, propped open, damaged and badly maintained. Consequently, Fire Door Safety Week was created:
To raise awareness of the critical role of fire doors, drawing attention to specific issues such as poor installation and maintenance.
To encourage building owners and users to check the operation and condition of their fire doors and to report those that aren’t satisfactory.
To link together the initiatives of many organisations with common interests in the fire door and passive fire protection industries.
To engage and educate people, helping the whole building industry and every property owner to understand the correct specification, supply, installation, operation, inspection and maintenance of fire doors.
HBSC will be participating in Fire Door Safety Week by publishing helpful articles and advice throughout Fire Door Safety Week. If you have any questions regarding your Fire Doors, please do not hesitate to contact us!
HMRC take a break from catching tax dodgers to dodge fires!!
HB Safety spent the day with HMRC RFTU Unit yesterday equipping Staff with the skills to fight fires. The training covered both theory and practical elements. Staff spent the first part of the course in the classroom learning about how fires start, how they spread and how they are ignited. After a short break it was all hands on as Staff got to try out what they had learned and had the opportunity to extinguish live fires.
Fire Training is a legal requirement in order to comply with The Fire Safety Regulations (NI) 2010. If you would like any assistance with meeting your statutory obligations, please get in touch and we can offer assistance in all areas.
staff getting some hands on experience with Fire Extinguishers.
Fire Door Week 26th September - 2nd October 2016
HBSC are pledging our support for Fire Door Week ... Why?? Put simply Fire Doors save life and property.
The Fire Door campaign aims to engage and educate building owners and building users on how to use them properly.
Leading up to Fire Door Week and of course during Fire Door Week, HBSC will be sharing articles on Fire Door Safety and how you can get engaged, so keep checking back for more info!
Our first article is A Five Step Fire Door Check to help you make sure your doors are up to the job.
- Check for certification Is there a label or plug on top (or occasionally on the side) of the door to show it is a certificated fire door? You can use the selfie function on your camera phone or a mirror to check. If there is, that’s good news, otherwise report it to whoever is in charge of your building.
- Check the gaps Check the gaps around the top and sides of the door are consistently less than 4mm when closed. You can use a £1 coin to give a feel for scale, this is about 3mm thick. The gap under the door can be slightly larger (up to 8mm is not uncommon), but if does depend on the door - as a rule of thumb, if you can see light under the door, the gap is likely to be too big. It’s good news if the door fits the frame and it’s not damaged. If not, report it. If the gaps are too big smoke and fire could travel through the cracks.
- Check the seals Are there any intumescent seals around the door or frame, and are they intact with no sign of damage? These seals are usually vital to the fire door's performance, expanding if in contact with heat to ensure fire (and in some cases smoke) can’t move through the cracks. If not, report it - the door may not be properly maintained and in the intensity of a fire may not protect you long enough.
- Check the hinges Are the hinges firmly fixed (three or more of them), with no missing or broken screws? If you see problems, report it - the door is obviously not properly maintained and in the intensity of a fire may not perform and hold back the fire for long enough.
- Check the door closes properly Open the door about halfway, let go and allow it to close by itself. Does it close firmly onto the latch without sticking on the floor or the frame? If not, report it. A fire door only works when it’s closed. A fire door is completely useless if it’s wedged open or can’t close fully.
If you think the building you're living in, working in or visiting has a faulty fire door, don't walk by. Report it to whoever manages or owns the building. You could save a live that day.
Care Home Fined And Left With 400k Bill For Fire Safety Breaches
Shaftesbury Care Group Ltd, which runs Donwell House Care Home in Washington, was fined £380,000, plus costs of £29,222, at Newcastle Crown Court.
This was uncovered when Tyne & Wear Fire and Rescue Service investigated a blaze in the bedroom of a resident on Saturday 13th September 2014.
Officers discovered that fire doors had been wedged open when they should have been closed, and the company’s appointed contractor had condemned just under half of the building’s fire extinguishers.
Additionally, the company failed to carry out a number of actions identified in a fire risk assessment, including installing electronic devices, which would have allowed fire doors to be held open while enabling them to be quickly closed in an emergency.
During the fire, the bedroom door of an elderly resident’s room was wedged open. As a result, smoke and heat quickly filled the communal corridor and spread into a neighbouring bedroom, which also had its door wedged open.
Also, there was a delay in identifying the room where the fire had started, and as a result an elderly woman became trapped in her bedroom.
Staff were therefore unable to evacuate her from the building due to the amount of smoke and heat in the corridor.
Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus entered the building through a first floor window and rescued the pensioner. She was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Gateshead, for treatment.
This seemingly appears to be common faults highlighted on Fire Risk Assessments in Care Homes and were also some of the major fire safety breaches reported at the devastating Rosepark Care Home Fire back in January 2004 where 14 elderly residents died.
Assistant Chief Fire Officer for Community Safety Chris Lowther said: “The breaches found Donwell House care home put the lives of residents and staff at risk. We have around 5,000 interactions with businesses annually, where we work to educate and inform them of their responsibilities to comply with the law.”
“This means that there is seldom the need for prosecution. However, where lives are put at risk and the law has been broken, we will not hesitate to prosecute. This fine imposed by the judge is one of the most significant we are aware of for a case of this kind. It should serve as a warning to businesses, and especially care home operators, that failure to carry out their responsibilities regarding fire safety can and will have serious consequences.”
How can you avoid prosecution in your Care Home?
The answer to this question is simple if you make sure you have the right fire safety strategy in place for your premises.
Since the introduction of the Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Services Order (NI) 2006 and Fire Safety Regulations (NI) 2010, fire certificates are no longer issued.Instead onus falls onto the ‘responsible person’ to take appropriate action to prevent fire and protect building users in the event of fire.
The first step is to ensure your fire risk assessment is up to date which will make you aware of the plan of action you need to take in order to comply with the law.
Make sure you use a Fire Risk Assessor who is Third Party Accredited. This means they have been independently assessed and the quality of their work has been verified as being to a high standard. Hayley Burgess holds third party certificated accreditation with the Institution of Fire Engineers. Third Party Accreditation demonstrates competency and specifies that fire risk assessors have the required technical capabilities and our risk assessment staff meet appropriate standards.
If you need help with your fire safety strategy and want to ensure you comply with the law, contact one of our expert team today on 028 9754 2450
Head for Heights!!
Two days are never the same when doing Fire Risk Assessments.
Today we were carrying out a Fire Risk Assessment for a Client who are constructing a state of the art Dried Milk Powder Plant. The new plant represents an investment of £30 million and when finished will double the plant's capacity.
The new drying tower has a area of 30,000 sq ft and stands at over 37m high!!
Pic taken from the top floor of the new milk drying plant
Early Years The Organisation for Young Children Celebrating 50 Years
HBSC Ltd are delighted to be exhibiting at the Early Years International Conference and AGM in Lough Erne Resort, Enniskillen.
We have special discounts available over the course of the next two days. We are looking forward to seeing you all there!
Accreditations!!
We are delighted to have been recognised in the latest Institution of Fire Engineer's Journal for firstly achieving inclusion on the IFE's Fire Risk Assessors Register (Life Safety) and secondly achieving 'Member Grade' if The IFE.
