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Fire Safety Audits & Upgrades

Fire Safety Audits

The objective of HENDRY building surveyors fire safety audits are to provide a structured process of auditing the fire safety measures serving a building against nominated audit criteria and benchmarks. Fire safety audits can enable building owners, property managers, services contractors and insurance companies to adequately gauge the efficacy and suitability of fire safety measures serving their building. Fire safety audits can include plans that are specifically developed to address the needs of the building owner or stakeholder group with variable degrees of reporting and complexity.

Fire safety audits can be developed to measure compliance with statutory requirements, part of due diligence reporting, pre-purchase or sale appraisal, risk management and mitigation and insurance assessment. Fire safety audits can provide gap analysis against current legislation or standards. The fire safety measures to be audited can include physical features and other relevant provisions and procedures that are designed to provide life and asset protection in the event of a fire. Fire safety audits are not limited to a desk top review of available documentation or a visual inspection. An active system test can also be carried out to ensure all systems operate and interface as designed and can be included in a fire safety audits report.

Fire Safety Audits & Upgrades

While building control legislation is not retrospective for existing buildings, some States legislation contains provisions that can trigger an upgrade of an existing building (fire safety audits) and in these cases the building owners may consider fire safety audits.

For example if building alterations (over a 3 year period) exceed 50% by volume of the building, a partial or total upgrade in accordance with the Building Code of Australia may result.

In addition, an upgrade may be required if the fire safety measures contained in the building are determined to be inadequate to protect persons using the building, and to facilitate their egress from the building, and in the event of a fire. Fire safety audits will reveal this.

Alternatively, a fire safety audits report required because of a proposed change of building use can result in an upgrade of fire safety and/or structural capacity. Finally, to restrict the spread of fire from the building to other buildings nearby is also a trigger potential.

Depending on the State or Territory, the power to enforce these determinations can be vested in the Municipal Council and the Fire Brigade. Whilst an authority may focus on the fire safety of an existing building, the forced upgrade can also include other matters related to health and amenity. Fire safety audits reports can advise building owners of foreseeable problems.

Since legislation requirements in the Building Code of Australia and Australian Standards are constantly evolving, building owners, tenants, design professionals and builders are faced with increasing challenges in responding to authority demands and requirements, sometimes fire safety audits are the only solution to solve future design problems.

HENDRY building surveyors have diversified fire safety audits experience in dealing with authorities and representing building owners' interests through the presentation of options in fire safety audits reports that are commensurate with the communities' expectations for existing buildings.