Achieving Fire Safety Compliance in Commercial Assets.
Our client is the Body Corporate of a Sydney commercial strata building. The strata scheme received a Fire Safety Order from the City of Sydney Council pursuant to Schedule 5 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979. The Fire Safety Order identified risks to fire safety controls with the building.
As the building manager provider to the Owners Corporation, we project managed a fire services upgrade to meet standards of performance for Building Code of Australia (BCA), Environmental Planning and Assessment (EPA) Regulations, Australian Standards and manufacturer specifications.
PlaceHQ coordinated stakeholders to respond to non-compliant fire safety measures and manage a fire safety upgrade. Key stakeholders included the regulatory authority, architect, mechanical engineers, fire brigade, managing contractor, and sub-contractors. A specialist fire engineering certifier was engaged to prepare a Fire Safety Report assessing proposed fire safety upgrades against the BCA and other performance standards and to develop a Fire Safety Strategy.
The fire safety upgrade resulted in:
- Replacement of 250 sprinkler heads to fast response heads
- Installation of smoke seals to fire doors
- Replacement of 12 defective fire dampers
- Upgrade of the smoke detection system
- Implementation of a Management-in-Use Plan for emergency control procedures.
The commercial strata building subject to the Fire Safety Order has five levels of Class 5 offices, ground level Class 6 retail and a Class 7A basement car park. The maintenance of fire and other safety systems is a mandatory requirement for building owners under the provisions of the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 and the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2000. All systems must comply with relevant legislation and Australian Standards, including AS1851:2012. The fire engineering assessment proposed that the fire safety upgrades improved the level of fire safety within the building in the context of the Fire Safety Order. The building received AFSS certification following remedial works to ensure the fire safety measures in the building were functioning to the standard to which they were installed.
