Andrew Steel, managing director of Airmec Essential Services, outlines the critical importance of fire dampers and in keeping these devices fully maintained and compliant, especially in healthcare facilities.
Fire dampers are critical safety devices, hidden away inside ventilation ducting and key to preventing the spread of fire. Hopefully, they are never required to close in anger, but regular inspection and testing of their readiness to do so is obviously vital — and required by law. However, there are a worrying number of buildings where these checks are still not happening.
This is for many reasons, but none would standup in a court of law following a disaster. The use and configuration of a building may have changed many times over the years, leading to an incomplete understanding of where the dampers even are. Stretched budgets may have pushed even mandatory actions down the list of priorities.
Chequered maintenance histories are, in my experience, all too common. Add to that issues with incorrect installation techniques, and the bottom line is that potentially thousands of fire dampers in UK hospital premises are non-compliant with current safety legislation, posing a direct risk to building users.
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