Great news to end 2019! After nearly 3 years of development, committee hearings and voting, the proposed tall mass timber code changes (14 new sections) by the International Code Council [ICC] have finally been approved. While these prescriptive provisions don’t come into effect in the 2021 edition of the International Building Code [IBC], both Oregon and Washington have already passed legislation allowing these provisions to be in effect now.

Elsewhere, the Alternative Means and Materials (AMM) path provides a means in which these new code provisions may be implemented onto a project, through Authority approval process.

The 2021 IBC is expected to be released in late 2020, along with the full set of 2021 I-codes.

Holmes Fire have the expertise to assist you with developing a compliance strategy for your mass timber project and we are excited to work with these new advancements in the code to develop more successful Mass Timber projects across the US.

Learn more about the changes from American Wood Council or Contact Us to hear see how we can work with you on your next timber project.

Holmes Fire are pleased to be supporting the Australian Steel Institute with their education to their members on the Benefits of Structural Fire Engineering.

A recent article has just been released for structural engineers and technical designers alike, on the opportunities that Structural Fire Engineering design principles and methodologies can provide for your steel projects.

Australian National Construction Code (NCC), through Performance-Based Solutions, supports advanced assessment methods and processes to satisfy the Performance Requirements. Performance-Based Solutions provide better quantification of structural performance in fire to verify structural robustness and provides the opportunity to optimise structural fire protection.

Want to know more? Our Technical Director, Dr Linus Lim will be presenting over the coming weeks for the Australian Steel Institute on Structural Fire Engineering.

For a presentation near you, be sure to register for the upcoming ASI events below:

Sydney- 15^th October
Brisbane- 16^th October
Melbourne- 17^th October
Adelaide- 24^th October
Perth- 25^th October

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.

From October 1^st 2017, new fire safety and building certification amendments to the Environmental Planning & Assessment Regulation 2000 will come into effect. These reforms aim at improving fire safety within new and existing buildings by requiring fire safety practitioners involved in a given project to be ‘competent’, which was previously not the case. There was previously no minimum qualification or experience that a practitioner needed to have in order to design, install, commission or maintain fire safety systems such a smoke detection systems, sprinkler systems, hydrants and hose reels, and even smoke exhaust and stair pressurisation systems.

For over 10 years now, the EP&A Regulation has required that for large projects, the nominated Fire Safety Engineer be suitably qualified and accredited as a C10 Fire Safety Engineer, which is essentially a formal recognition that a fire engineer is ‘competent’. Holmes Fire has five C10 Accredited Fire Safety engineers (Sydney based), all with a Masters degree or higher. Additionally, all Holmes Fire engineers have, or are undertaking, a specialist tertiary qualification in fire safety. This enables our team to provide sound fire safety advice and Performance Solutions that harmonise client and architectural objectives, whilst still maintaining acceptable levels of life and fire safety.

The amended EP&A Regulation also includes a number of additional checks and balances for fire systems designers and Certifiers to action, and Holmes Fire can assist the project team in achieving these to facilitate a smooth development approval process:

• Plans must show, and Specifications must describe, the physical aspects of any Performance Solution (Clause 130 and Clause 144A). Holmes Fire can provide documentation review services to verify that the requirements of a Holmes Fire Performance Solution have been incorporated into building plans and specifications. This also serves as a secondary review to identify any BCA anomalies that may be overlooked by the Certifier.
• Fire & Rescue NSW must be given the opportunity to inspect the fire safety systems that are installed, extended or modified within a Class 2 or 3 residential building before an Occupation Certificate is issued (Clause 136AA), regardless of whether a fire engineered solution has been applied. Where fire safety concerns of non-compliances are raised by these Fire & Rescue NSW inspections, Holmes Fire may be able to provide fire engineering advice or a Performance Solution to assist in resolving the issue.
• The format of annual fire safety statements is to be improved and made consistent (Clause 181). These statements will also now be required to list all Fire Engineering Reports and Performance Solutions that apply to the building. This represents an excellent opportunity to verify the fire safety schedule for existing buildings to ensure that the schedule correctly lists the installed systems and their standard of performance. Holmes Fire can assist with this process and since we are an independent firm that do not install or maintain fire services, our review will never be accompanied by a quote for rectification works.

The new Regulations introduce a new compliance method for fire safety system designs to incorporate minor deviations from the requirements of Australian Standards and BCA Deemed-to-Satisfy Provisions (Clause 164B). Where such exemptions are sought, Holmes Fire can assist in determining whether the operational performance of other fire safety systems may be impacted by the proposed exemption. Holmes Fire can also assist in determining if the proposed exemption may have an impact on any existing or proposed Performance Solution for the building.

Overall these changes will greatly increase the level of robustness within the fire safety and construction industries and Holmes Fire are excited to work alongside Certifiers, builders, fire services engineers and our clients to continue to deliver a high standard of fire safety solutions.

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).

Buildings constructed of engineered timber products such as glulam, Cross Laminated Timber (CLT), and Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) are starting to pop up all across Australia and New Zealand. It’s easy to see why, as timber has many advantages when compared to more traditional materials such as steel or concrete and there is a real demand in the market for the cost and carbon savings that timber can deliver, as well as the excellent aesthetic exposed timber can provide to a building’s design.

Engineers Australia featured a 9 page spread about timber buildings in their March 2017 issue to explore why there is such a growing demand. In writing the piece, the EA editors sought the input of one of Holmes Fire’s Engineers – James O’Neill, who is our resident timber expert, having completed his PhD on the performance of multi-storey timber buildings exposed to fire.

You can read the article from the Engineers Australia magazine here.

Courtesy create magazine published by Engineers Australia.

The NSW Coroner recently released the findings of the investigation of a fatal fire that occurred in a Bankstown Apartment building in September of 2012. Sadly a promising young woman, Connie Zhang, died from injuries sustained when she jumped or fell from the window of her Level 5 apartment whilst trying to escape the fire. Her housemate Ginger Jiang jumped from the window, and miraculously survived, but will be wheelchair bound for the remainder of her life. The building suffered extensive smoke and fire damage, resulting in a large number of residents displaced for up to a week after the fire. The local community was shocked and demanded answers as to how such a tragedy could occur. The Coroner’s report provides some of those answers and sets out a number of recommendations for key stakeholders in the building industry to minimise the risk of such a tragedy reoccurring. A few of the key issues and recommendations were:

Sprinklers

Based on the expert evidence presented, the Coroner was convinced that if the building had been provided with a sprinkler system, Connie would not have died. Sprinklers provide a multitude of fire safety benefits, most importantly, by automatically applying water to the fire and cooling smoke and fire gasses, sprinklers can avoid the fatal flashover scenario. Much of this Coroner’s investigation centred on whether the building was required to have a sprinkler system installed under the Building Code of Australia (BCA) Deemed-to-Satisfy Provisions (issues of effective height and the building containing an atrium), however this discussion has little bearing on the actual fire safety risk within the Level 5 apartment that day. The fundamental issue is that the life safety benefits of sprinklers are not fully taken into account in the BCA Deemed-to-Satisfy Provisions and the cost of installing sprinklers cannot be recovered by savings in other areas of the building design such as reductions in passive fire ratings or increase in travel distances to exits. These kind of concessions, based on the provision of sprinklers, are common in other building codes around the world and result in sprinklers being far more common in these jurisdictions. The Coroner has recommended that the Deemed-to-Satisfy Provisions be reformed to require the installation of sprinklers in all residential apartment buildings and similar concessions to be permitted, but building codes are slow moving beasts and such change will likely be a number of years away.

Maintenance

The Coronial investigation revealed there were potential issues with the ongoing maintenance of the building’s fire safety systems. Apartment buildings in NSW are required to be certified once a year by a ‘suitably qualified person’ as having fire safety systems that are maintained and will perform as per the standard of performance they were installed to. Over the years of the Bankstown building’s life, two different companies had provided such annual certification, despite the building allegedly having significant deficiencies in the fire detection and alarm system, stair pressurisation system and exit signs. The Coroner highlighted that there is an industry wide problem were those who certify building fire safety systems are often not suitably qualified to do so, but due to the lack of any accreditation requirements, do so anyway. Furthermore, whilst many companies claim to follow the maintenance schedules of AS 1851, there are presently no requirements for them to do so. The Coroner’s recommendations seek to rectify these systemic issues, however maintaining adequate fire safety will always be reliant upon the expertise of the individual.

Fire Safety Star rating

One of the Coroner’s more controversial recommendations was that a star rating system for fire safety be developed such that a building’s fire safety can be ranked. This highlights a critical nuance that is often overlooked: the building code sets the minimum standard for fire safety, there is always the option to go above this minimum standard and provide additional fire safety features, however this rarely occurs. Providing additional fire safety systems can not only afford occupants a higher level of life safety, but also provide an increased level of property protection, minimising the potential damage to a building in the event of a fire, and reduce the extent of ‘downtime’ where the building is not able to be occupied after a fire. The problem is that presently there is little motivation for a developer to provide more than the minimum required level of fire safety. The Coroner proposed that a star rating system
for fire safety would provide motivation for additional investment in fire safety (similar to the way Green Star ratings provide motivation for investment in sustainable building design) and highlights that “members of the public are entitled to know whether the building which they occupy is compliant, but minimally so, of safer than the minimum standards”.

A copy of the full Coroner’s report can be found here.

Holmes Fire has not been involved with the subject development, this article is provided as an interest piece only. Holmes Fire sends our sincerest condolences to all those affected by this tragedy.