Fire Safety in New, Extended or Altered Buildings

Fire Safety in new, extended or altered buildings is the responsibility of the Local Authority who delegates its responsibility to Building Control Department who enforces and administers the Building Regulations. The relevant guidance documentation are one of three also it is important you decide which guidance documentation suits your purpose and stay with that documentation there should be no cherry picking between the three options.

• General guidance, applying to most building work (ADB and other government guidance to support legislative requirements)
• Advanced guidance (BS 9999) essentially introduces a middle route between ADB and BS 7974
• High-level guidance on fire safety engineered solutions for larger, more complex buildings (BS 7974)

It is important that those dealing with fire safety matters have a working knowledge of this guidance for background information.

Approved Document Part B Fire Safety

The Department of Communities and Local Government who is responsible for Building Regulations has provided all the approved documents online and part is available from Approved Document Part B Fire Safety.

British Standard 9999

BS 9999 : 2008 Code of practice for fire safety in the design, management and use of buildings and is a new standard which uses risk profiles instead of prescripted methods as used in ADB.

• BS 9999:2008 Code of practice for fire safety in the design, management and use of buildings
• BS 5588-1:1990 Fire precautions in the design, construction and use of buildings. Code of practice for residential buildings

British Standard 7974

BS 7974:2001. Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings with the relevant PD’s provides guidance on a fully fire engineered solution.

• BS 7974:2001. Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings. Code of practice
• PD 7974-0:2002. Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings. Guide to design framework and fire safety engineering procedures
• PD 7974-1:2003. Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings. Initiation and development of fire within the enclosure of origin (Sub-system 1)
• PD 7974-2:2002. Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings. Spread of smoke and toxic gases within and beyond the enclosure of origin (Sub-system 2)
• PD 7974-3:2003. Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings. Structural response and fire spread beyond the enclosure of origin (Sub-system 3)
• PD 7974-4:2003. Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings. Detection of fire and activation of fire protection systems. (Sub-system 4)
• PD 7974-5:2002. Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings. Fire service intervention. (Sub-system 5)
• PD 7974-6:2004 PD 7974-6:2004. The application of fire safety engineering principles to fire safety design of buildings. Human factors. Life safety strategies. Occupant evacuation, behaviour and condition (Sub-system 6)
• PD 7974-7:2003 PD 7974-7:2003. Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings. Probabilistic risk assessment

Relevant British Standards

British Standards are available online but are very expensive however if you locate the principle technical reference library in your area you should be able to study them free of charge. I did and eventually contacted Liverpool Central Library who provided an excellent service.