The Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) has published a fully revised version of its long-established industry guidance, 'DW145: Installation of Fire Dampers and Smoke Dampers'.
BESA says the publication is the latest initiative in its campaign to improve building safety standards in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster. It also follows the warning it issued last year that annual maintenance inspections were uncovering a significant number of incorrectly installed dampers that did not comply with manufacturers’ instructions.
DW 145 covers statutory requirements for the installation, testing, and maintenance of fire dampers and smoke control dampers, including clients’ legal obligations to ensure their fire safety systems comply with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 for England and Wales, and the Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations 2006.
The publication, DW145 – Fire Dampers (E/EI) and Leakage Guide to Good Practice for Installation, Design and Selection, Inspection and Maintenance, explains the crucial role played by the penetration seal in ensuring the overall fire-stopping integrity of an installation, and ‘other critical issues’ – including maintenance teams being able to easily find and access dampers for testing and repair, and why designers and installers should seek expert advice from damper manufacturers.
BESA says it felt revising this guidance was a priority in the wake of the Grenfell Tower public inquiry due to the important part dampers play in overall building fire safety strategies.
Kevin Morrissey, Chair of BESA’s Technical Committee, said: “Since the Grenfell Tower disaster, the building services industry has, quite rightly, faced increasingly intensive scrutiny. The Association has thus been urgently reviewing its technical guidance, and supporting this work with by offering targeted training to ensure that everyone involved in the design, installation, and maintenance, of fire dampers and smoke dampers is aware of what is needed to keep people and property safe.
“Unsurprisingly, UK fire authorities are taking an in-depth interest in this aspect of building safety, while clients are now more aware of their legal and moral obligations. This places greater pressure on damper and ductwork contractors to provide evidence of their competence and ability to comply with legislation.”
The revisions to DW145 clarify several critical fire safety issues, including the importance of systems being designed to allow easy access, so maintenance teams can test, fault-find, investigations, and carry out repairs. It also highlights the need for care and consideration throughout the specification and installation works, emphasising that – if in doubt – designers and installers should seek expert advice from manufacturers.
BESA says the revised guidance emphasises the importance of following manufacturers’ instructions, ‘but also addresses some of the issues associated with those instructions that can cause confusion’. It said: “For example, some are clearer than others on the best methods for hanging and supporting dampers.”
The Association says DW145 ‘provides a quality benchmark for the industry, by outlining some examples of typical installations to further ease compliance with safety requirements’. It also stresses that system designers should provide a schedule that includes the specific damper asset reference associated with factors such as the wall type, damper classification, boundary construction, and installation method.
