Author: Tori.Waddell

In response to the public’s growing uncertainty and trust in the residential sector, the NSW government has introduced new legislation and regulations aimed at improving the quality of building and construction work.

From the 1^st of July 2021, the Design and Building Practitioners Regulation 2021 (DBP Regulation) came into effect in NSW. The new regulations include a registration and certification scheme that supports the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 (DBP Act) enacted last year on 10^th June 2020. The DBP Regulation has been designed to increase accountability in key stakeholders of the building including designers, developers, builders and professional engineers as well as establish a process requiring compliance declarations at multiple points of the building works.

On each residential apartment building project that adopts Performance Solutions, the Fire Engineer will be required to declare that the design meets the Performance Requirements and that the Fire Engineering Report integrates the designs of other key consultants such as structural, mechanical and fire services. These key consultants will also be required to declare that the requirements of the Fire Engineering Report have been incorporated into their design documentation.

Holmes Fire views the DBP Regulation as a welcome addition to the building industry and supports the inclusion of the design intergration process as a positive step towards a higher quality of building construction.

To streamline the process of integrating designs, Holmes Fire offers documentation review services – to put the magnifying glass over the drawings and specifications provided by key consultants to verify that the fire engineering requirements are correctly documented. Though the DBP Regulation and its requirements are new, Holmes Fire has an existing process to undertake documentation review services and have been offering this service to our clients for over 2 years.

Our team has found that reviewing documentation at the design stage results in issues being identified much earlier, when such issues only exist on paper. The time and effort taken to amend a drawing is relatively minimal compared to resolving a construction issue that has been built and has other completed building works surrounding it. This design documentation review process will reduce the number of issues that are discovered during construction works and fewer ‘patch fixes’ being used to resolve those issues.

Since offering design documentation review services 2 years ago, our team has developed an efficient process to review all relevant documentation and help the project proceed in a timely manner.

While the industry navigates its way around these big changes, it’s important to remember that it will take all affected practioners and businesses some time to adjust to the new norm for residential apartments. The DBP Regulation will lead to changes to our regular processes but the identification of errors at earlier stages will create opportunities for collaboration and innovation while also providing builders and developers with cost savings due to reduced rectification works during construction.

Australasia’s largest fire protection event, Fire Australia 2021, returns to Sydney this year with three days of the latest, leading fire safety content with key industry experts. The event features an intensive Conference Program with high profile speakers, breakout sessions, CPD seminars and off-site tours. The Tradeshow Hall will be open for all three days showcasing market-leading products and services from over 80 local and international exhibitors. FPA Australia will also be announcing their Award winners at the Conference Dinner held on Wednesday 12^th May.

First held in 1965, the conference is hosted by Fire Protection Association Australia (FPA Australia), a not-for-profit organisation and national peak body for fire safety. The Association is made up of members from manufacturers, suppliers, installers and servicers of fire protection products and services, firefighters, building owners, insurers, designers and building surveyors, government and legislators, educators, bushfire consultants and anyone else working as part of the fire protection community to provide a safer environment for all Australians. The Association’s vision and purpose is a safer community where loss of life, injury and damage to property and the environment are eliminated through effective fire protection.

Join our very own Sarnia Rusbridge, Project Director in our Sydney office, and Nate Lobel, Principal Fire Safety Engineer at Performance Based Consulting, for a breakout session after Morning Tea on Day 1. They’ll be diving into a contentious topic, “Fire Safety Engineering – Did we drop the ball?”, where they’ll look at how fire safety and the role of fire engineers has developed, what the industry is currently achieving and what’s being done in the background to accommodate and prepare for the expectations of the building and construction industry. Be prepared to leave this session asking yourself – are we doing enough – through legislation, education, research and in our role as fire engineers within a project team.

Don’t miss the opportunity to see Sarnia in action and engage with industry professionals from around Australia, register now at fireaustralia.com.au.

The International Fire Engineering Guidelines (IFEG) has been the go-to handbook of Australian fire engineers for years but this could all be changing soon.

Engineers Australia has formed a team comprised of leading fire engineers to provide guidance on the content of the new Australian Fire Engineering Guidelines (AFEG) at the behest of the Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB). This team features our very own Sarnia Rusbridge, Project Director in our Sydney office. She has been working alongside Kjetil Pedersen from Warrington Fire, Jonathan Barnett from Basic Expert, and Tobias Salomonsson of RED Fire Engineers since mid-2020. Between the four, the team has decades of fire engineering experience internationally and in Australia under their belt and are well known within the industry for their specialist knowledge of fire safety practices and research.

The release of the AFEG will be welcomed by existing and incoming fire engineers who are focused on providing the best solutions for a project. Holmes looks forward to when the AFEG is completed and the clarity it will provide the Australian Fire Engineering industry.

Following the paths of Queensland and Victoria, NSW Parliament recently passed a new law under the Design and Building Practitioners Bill that will require professional engineers to be registered to practise from July 1st.

The new law will require that anyone wishing to provide professional engineering services in the fields of civil, structural, electrical, mechanical and fire safety engineering be registered themselves or be working under the direct supervision of a registered engineer. The law aims to lift the professional standards of the engineering industry within NSW, to meet the legislative standards of our neighbouring states and to provide the community with a level of confidence in the engineering industry.

Future regulation will dictate the minimum requirements to be registered and the process for individuals to register. Engineers Australia (EA) and other professional bodies are pushing to allow anyone who is registered on the National Engineering Register (NER) or is a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng) with EA to use their status as a pathway to statutory registration.

With 30% of our engineers currently holding a NER and/or CPEng status, and accreditations in Queensland and Victoria, Holmes welcomes the changes the new legislation will bring to the industry and look forward to meeting the higher levels of scrutiny and responsibility.

CEO Australia | Project Director

Branch Manager BRIS | Senior Fire Engineer

Project Director

Senior Fire Engineer

Branch Manager SYD | Senior Fire Engineer

Branch Manager MELB | Technical Director

Technical Director

Senior Fire Engineer

The Holmes Fire team is celebrating together with the Australian Building Code Board (ABCB) to mark 21 years since the release of the first performance-based building code in Australia.

After a long era of only prescriptive based building codes, the ABCB launched the performance-based BCA (BCA96) in October 1996, introducing overarching Performance Requirements, enabling bespoke building solutions to be implemented, as long as they could be demonstrated to satisfy the Performance Requirements.

Holmes Fire has been undertaking performance-based fire engineering in Australia throughout these 21 years and actually even prior to the release of this code. One of our founders, Hamish Maclennan, was providing alternative designs to the prescriptive building code well before 1996, through applications to the NSW Land & Environment Court.

The introduction of BCA96 has been a great development and advancement for the industry allowing a change to the approach in how buildings are designed and constructed. And, in a 2013, an independent report estimated that 70% of the $1.1 billion per annum productivity gains delivered by ABCB reforms were derived from the performance-based code. This same report identifies that the productivity gains could potentially double with an increased use of Performance based design.

Holmes Fire believes that the performance-based BCA has achieved its intent to lay the foundation for an industry to advance design, encourage flexibility, improve efficiency and facilitate aesthetic architecture, whilst maintaining the safety, health and amenity requirements of the code.

Holmes Fire is one of the few fire engineering consultancy firms who has been practising with this code since it was first introduced, and consequently, a countless number of our clients have benefited from the opportunities performance-based design has offered in adopting new technologies and materials, reducing construction time and costs, and providing architectural flexibility.

ABCB is committed to progressing the code 21 years on, whilst maintaining an approach that increases compliance, efficiency and productivity, including quantification of the Performance Requirements, capacity building and engendering a performance mindset.

Happy 21st Birthday to the performance-based BCA, let us celebrate the growth in our industry, promote many more years of innovative design and continue to allow a performance mindset across Australia’s building and construction industry.

Holmes Fire has been shocked by the devastating events of the recent fire that raged the Grenfell Tower in London. Our thoughts go out to the victims and their friends and family.

When events like this occur a lot of questions are raised and the community looks to experts such as Holmes Fire to provide insight, and more importantly, surety that similar events are not likely to occur closer to home.

Our International CEO, Stuart Harris, who is also a volunteer fire fighter, was invited onto The AM Show in New Zealand to provide comment and answer some key questions about the incident and the potential implications for the New Zealand building industry.

You can see the full interview here (staring at 4:44).