New Zealand's been lucky not to have a multiple death fire tragedy in a high rise apartment or office block because many buildings' passive fire systems are compromised.
Delegates at the Passive Fire Compliance; What You Don't Know conference in Auckland on Friday paid for by giant insurer IAG heard that New Zealand had achieved "deregulation through incompetency" in passive fire safety.
They shared stories of incompetent passive fire design and installation, which is leaving lives under threat, and building owners facing rises in insurance premiums as insurers have to make "tough decisions" when assessing them for cover.
But the Fire Protection Association (FPA) has begun moves which it hopes will drive the cowboys from its industry.
Since the Grenfell Tower fire in the UK claimed 72 lives, which followed a spate of shocking high rise apartment block fires in Australia, Dubai, Azerbaijan, France, China and the US, a global spotlight has fallen on the adequacy of fire protection systems worldwide.
Delegates to the conference in Auckland heard New Zealand had a systemic issue.
Bryan Tedford​, from conference sponsor IAG, the country's largest insurer of commercial buildings, said there were passive fire system problems at around two-thirds of the roughly 5000 commercial and large residential buildings assessed by IAG each year.
"We have a vested interest in making sure the design, the maintenance and the upkeep, are maintaining these passive fire protections," he said. "It's critical to the safety of our customers, and to the whole of the economy."
IAG had to take "tough decisions", which included lifting insurance premiums, or putting exclusions on policies, if the building owner did not stump up the money to fix the problems.
Passive fire systems in buildings include constructing fire containment "cells" within buildings, walls that slow fire, and keep it out of escape routes for long enough for people to evacuate.
But the conference heard that passive fire safety was too often an afterthought in the design and construction of a building, including during building renovations.
And, fire engineer Alan Page from the Olsson Fire and Risk consultancy said during the lifetime of buildings incompetent tradies were compromising passive fire safety by punching holes through fire walls to pass cables, and ducts through, and then sealing them up with substances like flammable foam, or pink batts, or even just leaving gaping holes.
The Canterbury District Health Board was so shocked by the incompetence of tradies, it created its own training a certification programme which tradespeople had to pass to be allowed to work on its buildings.
The installation of passive fires safety systems was being undertaken by people like plumbers and electricians, who lacked training in passive fire installation, the conference heard.
Ed Claridge, principle fire engineer at Auckland council, said it was time for passive fire installation work to become a "restricted trade", which could only be done by licenced trade people with appropriate training.
"This number 8 wire mentality... where anyone can call themselves an expert has no place in an industry where we are trying to protect lives."
"We can't keep doing this, trivialising compliance and working towards deregulation by incompetency. We need to at some point have a really serious conversation about occupational regulation."
Lobbying is underway in a bid to get the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which was not represented at the conference, to begin work to restrict fire safety work to suitably qualified and experienced people.
Joe Gilmartin, a passive fire expert from Wellington's Shearer Fire, was working on the Fire Protection Association project to establish a qualification and training pathway, which should be ready early next year, to pave the way for regulation of the trade.
New Zealand did not lack for competent people, fire safety engineers at the conference said.
But, delegates said, developers and building owners could shop around for friendly passive fire experts to sign off their building Warrant of Fitness- required by many multi-resident and commercial buildings like hotels and rest homes- or to certify to a local council that passive fire systems met legal requirements, even when they didn't.
Both Gilmartin, and Ron Green from Fire Group Consulting, said they had both lost out on work because they refused to certify buildings were safe.
Gilmartin said: "I have inspected some brand new buildings that should never have been opened. I would like to name names, but I can't."
British expert Gary Strong from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors is involved in a project to create global passive fire safety standards for buildings.
Strong, who was involved in the investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire, said Britain and the world the Grenfell Tower fire had provided a once in two-decade chance to improve global fire safety, before the focus of authorities moved onto new concerns.
"With mass migration into cities, more and more of these tall towers are going to be built," he said.
"In London alone, there's over 550 planning applications for tall towers in the centre of London right now."
In one case in the UK, the remediation costs to replace flammable aluminium panel cladding similar to that on the Grenfell Tower was around pounds75,000 (NZ$144,000).
The costs in New Zealand could be high too.
Green said one rest home client faced a bill for $160,000 to install firewalls at one of its residences, but had subsequently found similar problems in its other homes.
Original Source: stuff.co.nz
