The draft of a new publicly available specification, PAS 9980 Fire risk appraisal and assessment of external wall construction and cladding of existing blocks of flats – Code of practice, has been published for comment.
It gives recommendations and guidance on undertaking a fire risk appraisal and assessment (FRAA) of the external wall construction of existing multi-storey, multioccupied residential buildings.
The purpose of such an FRAA is to assess the risk to occupants from a fire spreading externally over – or within – the walls of the building and whether remediation is considered necessary. It is applicable where the risk is known or suspected from the presence of combustible materials within the external wall build-up.
CIBSE Technical Director Hywel Davies said it was a significant draft document. He said: ‘it is really important that those with practical experience in the façade engineering field give this draft PAS thorough scrutiny.
‘It is likely to replace the EWS1 form, so it’s essential that it is scrutinised at this public comment stage. We have a responsibility to respond and provide constructive engineering comment to improve the draft prior to publication and adoption.’ The SFE Fire/Technical Committee will be sending a response and invites contributions from members before 12 May, to give the committee time to collate responses before the consultation closes on 20 May.
The proposal can be downloaded from www.cibse.org/pas9980
Comments should be sent to sfe@cibse.org
