Essential Safety Measures
MAINTENANCE OF ESSENTIAL SAFETY MEASURES
BUILDING REGULATIONS 2006
Essential Safety Measures
Essential Safety Measures (previously called essential services) are the fire and life safety items installed or constructed in a building to ensure adequate levels of emergency fire safety over the entire life of the building.
Essential Safety Measures generally include all traditional building fire emergency installations such as sprinkler, mechanical, emergency lighting services etc, but also include passive fire safety such as fire doors, fire rated structural components etc and other ancillary infrastructure items such as path of travel to exits.
Buildings of this type and age are generally equipped with a large number of Essential Safety Measures, and current Building Regulations contain specific requirements for the inspection and maintenance of these services to ensure the adequate levels of safety and amenity is maintained.
Essential Safety Measures Compliance Auditing
Inspections and audits of Essential Safety Measures are undertaken to ensure every essential safety measure continues to perform at the same level of operations that existed at time of commissioning and/ or issue of relevant occupancy permits for the building.
Maintenance of Essential Safety Measures involves periodic inspections / audits of the prescribed Essential Safety Measures and maintaining a record of the maintenance inspection and audits culminating in the issue of an Annual Essential Safety Measures Report.
Typically for traditional Essential Safety Measures such as fire hydrant, sprinkler and emergency components, testing procedures, frequency of testing and method of recording/ reporting is stipulated in the relevant governing Australian Standard.
For other services such as passive fire safety elements, conventional industry practices including inspection by competent person experienced in the regulatory provisions and requirement of the applicable Essential Safety Measures should be adopted.
Building Regulations Requirements
Essential safety measures are enshrined in legislation pursuant to Part 12 of the Building Regulations 2006. Compliance with the Building Regulations is required by Part 2 (7) of the Building Act 1993 as a means of regulating the ‘construction, use, maintenance, demolition and removal of buildings’.
Part 12 of the Building Regulations applies to all residential, commercial and industrial buildings with the only exception being typical domestic (house) type construction except for swimming pool barriers.
Part 12 of the Building Regulations categorises all ‘defined’ buildings A Division one (1) category which is then subdivided into either subdivision One (1) buildings or subdivision Two (2) buildings. A subdivision three (3) has been introduced which relates to the maintenance of exits and paths of travel.
Subdivision 1 is related to all new buildings or section of existing buildings altered after the 1st July 1994. Subdivision 2 relates to all buildings constructed or altered prior to 1st July 1994. Alterations or construction of building or part after June 14 2005 are also classed as subdivision 1 Buildings, refer to the list of Essential Safety Measures is now referred to in Part I of the BCA. Subdivision 3 relates to occupants being responsible in all buildings for the maintenance of exits and paths of travel.
The regulations require any item which is required and/ or nominated under the regulations as an Essential Safety Measures to be routinely inspected and maintained where necessary (refer to list of Essential Safety Measures and the level of performance that should be achieved).
The level of maintenance expected by the inspecting authorities should not be greater than that required at the time the equipment; fitting or safety measure was installed. If there was no specific standard of maintenance in force at the time then any applicable relevant Australian Standard available at the time may be used as a guide with regards to achieve adequate maintenance.
A majority of Essential Safety Measures will require more than one annual inspection and it is the responsibility of the building owners and/ or agents to ensure that an adequate system of inspection and maintenance procedures are instigated to ensure regulatory compliance.
Maintenance Objectives
The primary objective of essential safety measures legislation is to ensure that every essential safety measure continues to perform at the same level of operation that existed at time of commissioning and issue of the occupancy permit.
Maintenance involves identification of relevant passive and active safety measures as per Building Code of Australia (BCA2005) requirements, periodic checks and inspections in accordance with relevant Australia Standards, and proper documentation and records of annual reports.
The reasons building essential safety measures require maintenance are for:
Ø General wear and tear (i.e. exit door hardware, replacement of emergency light batteries)
Ø Reliability of system operation (i.e. smoke control, fire sprinkler systems)
Ø Faults occurring after system commissioning (i.e. smoke detection system)
Ø General housekeeping (i.e. paths of travel, signage)
The benefits of proper maintenance of essential safety measures include (i) better site risk management, (ii) lower incident of system faults and (iii) protection against litigation and illegitimate insurance claims.
Essential Safety Measures Source Tables
Tables 1 and 2 are from the Building Control Commissions Practice Note 23 that has been issued to building surveyors as “a guide” in the nomination for Essential Safety Measures performance, nature and frequency of inspection or testing that are to be included in occupancy permits and determinations.
Table 1 is the current table and is used in nominating Essential Safety Measures in Buildings Built after June 2005.
Table 2 is the previous table which related to a previous regulation (Building Regulations 1994) which related to buildings built or altered between July 1994 and June 2005.
Reference links and Information
Maintenance of essential safety measures Practice Note 23
Maintaining essential safety measures in your building
Part 12 of the Building Regulations 2006