Wrightstyle Raises Fire Safety Concerns With UK Government
One of the UK’s leading steel glazing companies has written to the government to raise what it believes to be an “extremely important” issue of fire safety.
Wrightstyle Limited, which supplies steel
glazing systems worldwide, is concerned that glazed doors, screens and
facades are being inspected and passed as being fire resistant when in
fact they offer little protection.
The company’s chairman, Denis Wright, has raised the issue with
Andrew Stunell OBE MP, Under Secretary of State at the Department for
Communities and Local Government, who has already announced a
consultation on changes that need to be made to the building regulations
to ensure they remain fit for purpose.
The minister has also stated that he wishes to explore what more
can be done to make sure inspectors adhere to the building regulations
and how better levels of compliance can be delivered - issues that are
at the heart of Wrightstyle’s concern.
The company believes that there seems to be an incomplete
understanding and enforcement of fire specifications contained within
the Approved Document B and the usage requirements of certification
data.
"For example, and we have first-hand experience of this, unlatched
doors with untested or incompatible fire-resistant glass are being
accepted as fire doors within the regulatory definitions despite the
fact that they are clearly not within the permissible limitations of
their supplied test certification. This is palpably absurd,” said Denis
Wright in his letter.
Wrightstyle says that there seems to be insufficient guidance to
fire or building control officers or consultants as to what needs to be
specifically checked on the submitted data. The building regulations
simply state that test standards such as BS476 Part 22 or the applicable
EN specification should be available.
However, at no point do the regulations require further examination
of that test certificate to determine whether or not the installed
assembly matches the description in the certification. For example, if
the assembly is constructed from multiple components, have they been
tested together? If it has been welded, has it been welded using the
correct process?
In the recent past, Wrightstyle has raised issues of fire safety
certification in Dubai and, most recently, in Abu Dhabi, where it
believed that regulations were not being stringently enforced, or where
there was a less than optimal understanding of the performance criteria
of using systems where components have not been tested together.
Wrightstyle supplies internal and external glass and glazing
systems internationally, with a full service capability from design,
through fabrication to installation. Apart from recent UK contracts,
for both commercial and Olympic projects, it has supplied over the past
year to, among other countries, South Africa (a FIFA World Cup stadium),
UAE (Dubai Metro) and the USA (a nationally-important chapel for the US
Marine Corps).
“British Standards and Building Regulations are there to protect
public safety, not least in the event of a catastrophic fire. With
regret, when it comes to unlatched fire doors, there requires to be an
assessment of current guidelines for fire safety officers, and other
authorised fire consultants, and an urgent need to issue further
guidance to determine when an unlatched glazed door system can be
considered a fire door,” concluded Denis Wright.
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