As building owners, managers and ‘responsible persons’ under the RRO, how do you assess the fire safety of your building facade?
Many buildings have been overclad, and it is not always possible to visually establish the underlying construction’s true nature and fire resistance. Cladding can also often conceal workmanship issues. As a result, some building facades when exposed to fire can result in catastrophic failure and rapid fire spreading across the building elevations. Therefore, it is essential that thorough checks are undertaken to ensure that the correct measures have been taken and correct materials selected to reduce the risk of fire spreading across building facades.
Sandberg can provide specialist inspection techniques and materials analysis to determine whether appropriate fire resilience is present and in accordance with specifications provided and relevant standards.
On-site techniques employed include:
- High-level rope access inspection
- Videoscope investigations with photographic and video recording capabilities
- Intrusive investigations (breakouts, coring, drilling)
- Carrying out checks on firestopping installations
- Quality assurance checks on new construction or refurbishments
- Specification review
- Sampling of materials
Materials testing and analysis include:
- Composition analysis (SEM analysis, petrographic analysis).
- Heating and combustion tests can be carried out in order to establish whether or not a cladding material is combustible or flammable
- Infrared spectroscopy techniques can be employed to determine the nature of any polymer-based insulation material incorporated into the cladding
These services should be undertaken in conjunction with your Specialist Fire Consultant who will use the information gained during our inspection and testing as part of their Fire Risk Assessment.
