The Critical Role of Fire Compartmentation (Firestopping)

Effectively “stopping” a fire from spreading throughout your building, fire compartmentation is the most effective means of limiting fire damage before the fire brigade arrives.

By dividing building premises into fire compartments, fire is contained by forming a barrier against smoke, heat and toxic gases. This effectively holds the fire in the area of origin, providing protection for the building and its occupants.

Due to the vital role compartmentation should play in your overall fire strategy, it is fundamental that both the fire-resisting partitions and fire doors are properly installed by expert teams who fully understand the importance of correct product installation for maximum fire safety.

Article 17 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, in respect of the requirement for maintenance of fire safety provisions, states that it is advisable to set up a regular planned preventative maintenance programme for completed works.

In relation to compartmentation, the following guidance could be adopted in accordance with BS 9999: 2017:

It is essential for the safety of the occupants of a building that fire safety equipment, including passive fire protection provisions, is inspected frequently.

Although much of the inspection can be undertaken by suitably trained personnel, a formal agreement should be made with the installer or the installer’s representative to provide the regular inspection and testing described in the relevant British Standards for individual fire safety installations.

To satisfy this need, Tier One Fire Consultancy offers a range of surveys and reports tailored to the client’s unique circumstances and priorities.

Fire Compartmentation Inspections

Our teams will visually inspect all areas of the identified compartment lines within your building to assess their likely performance in the event of a fire.

Defects in compartmentation lines can take numerous forms and require expert identification.

Common defects include simple penetrations, such as pipework entering or exiting a compartment with gaps, or inappropriate firestopping, allowing smoke or fire to potentially pass from one compartment to another.

Other defects include cabling, voids, ducts or linear gaps where compartment lines do not fully encapsulate the compartment. These defects are either latent from the original build, or imposed from subsequent works, such as M&E events. Both reiterate the need for regular inspection.

Fire Stopping Survey Types

Tier One Fire Consultancy offers four distinct fire stopping survey types.

Indicative

Tier One Fire Consultancy will undertake all elements of the standard compartmentation survey, but only to selected floors or areas of a building.

This will give you the same detail of electronic reporting within your chosen areas, from which our specialists will extrapolate results to enable indicative results to be presented for review.

Standard

Our standard survey is classed as invasive.

This means we will review all areas of the building, along with inspecting some harder-to-reach areas, such as roof voids, above suspended ceilings, and through inspection hatches in solid ceilings.

Enhanced

This option provides all the benefits of the standard survey, but includes additional indicative destructive works, including a percentage of identified areas for further investigation.

In most cases, this will include:

• 10% of soil vent pipes
• 5% of behind architraves

Our teams will make good on all works, with follow-up attention by your chosen decorator.

Destructive

This survey includes all elements of the non-intrusive survey, together with a pre-defined scope of intrusive works that are defined as a greater requirement than the enhanced survey option.

The Fire Compartmentation Inspection Report

Electronically recording all deficiencies, along with photographic evidence, the report will highlight the following:

• A unique identifying number for each defect
• Location
• Room type
• Required fire rating
• Penetrating service type
• Seal type required
• Date and surveyor details