Don’t be caught out by the chain of misinterpretations

If you are a principal designer or principal contractor, how certain are you that the product you are specifying or buying is what you think it is? Are you absolutely sure that the application you are specifying it for is covered by the evidence? Do you know and understand what that evidence is and what it means?

Supply chains in the construction industry can be very long and every link in that chain is an opportunity for the compliance message to be miscommunicated, misunderstood or simply ignored.

Take fire resistant glazing systems. These often originate with a continental European system house, which will have a bank of fire test evidence geared largely towards a range of applications in accordance with EN 13501-2 – all very good and, in theory, ticking all the UK certification boxes. But those applications are limited and tailored towards a European architectural model, meaning that they are very often not appropriate to project designs in the UK.

By the time the product reaches the project, it could have passed through a UK distributor, a fabricator and a specialist subcontractor. Each of those links in the chain could be using their own interpretation of what the fire test evidence and classification allows. They might also be using door hardware that is advertised as suitable for fire doors, the marketing literature for which does not make clear what type of fire door. Door hardware is often fire tested on timber doors, but seldom on metal-framed, fully glazed fire doors, which are a very different thing.

In the UK, to satisfy the desire for expansive internal glazing, third-party assessment is often the route to underwriting applications not directly covered by the primary evidence. The rules of assessment now require good, applicable test evidence as a basis. This means that the approved application has very specific parameters, but they are often not clearly defined in the text, and it would be easy for users to read something into it that simply isn’t there.

When the product installation is complete, how can you be sure that any of the links in the supply chain have not made an incorrect interpretation of the evidence? Have they allowed the door size to exceed its certification or the overall dimensions of the screen? Is it fixed to the correct form of supporting construction on all four sides? Does the door have any additional hardware, like electronic access control or an operator that does not have direct and applicable fire test evidence for the door type? These are all important questions that need to be answered to ensure the specified product meets all the proper fire and safety regulations and is fit for purpose.

There is no quick fix for this issue. Competency throughout the supply chain will improve with the help of the various initiatives being rolled out but it will take time. In the meantime, to ensure that the accuracy of supporting evidence is not diluted as it passes along the supply chain, specifiers and buyers at the top of the chain would do well to interrogate that evidence for themselves at the start of the process. Satisfy yourself that the product and its evidence fit the project application in all its details before you commit to using it.

Peter Long is a divisional fire and certification director at Optima Systems