Fire Engineering
Fire Risk Assessment
In this day and age, fire safety has been thrust thoroughly into the limelight and legislation under constant review. WGM Consulting Engineers are competent, qualified and keen to provide the safest solutions across all of our designs. We understand that businesses do not want to worry about fire safety ever being a concern, and we are there to help ensure that it never is. If you are unsure as to your level of competency in fire risk assessments, please feel free to contact us in order that we can ensure that you, your colleagues and your business is safe from fire.
Our qualified staff have experience in many business and property types. Fire Risk Assessments need to be relevant not only to the property but to the type of business being carried out. This is the case whether an office, retail, HMO property, factory or warehouse.
In the operation of any business, fire risk assessment can easily become one of the tasks that will be done ‘tomorrow’. Restricted budgets and pressures to get things done force business managers to complete this task by staff not competent or experienced in fire or risk assessment. This decision could have catastrophic effects with over 580 people dying in the UK from fire related injuries.
Legislation is in a transitional phase within the workplace with the removal of fire certificates and increased liability upon the named ‘responsible person’. Corporate manslaughter is a legal reality therefore employers must ensure that their risk assessments are conducted by legally competent personnel otherwise they may feel the full force of the judicial system.
Fire Engineering
A complex and fast changing legislative framework and a move towards performance based standards, necessitate a fundamentally based scientific / engineering approach to fire protection design.
Through design and analysis, WGM Consulting Engineers can provide alternative fire engineered solutions in compliance with current building standards throughout the UK.
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Zoned Fire Modelling enhance and support or vast experience in fire engineering in order to achieve the best results for our clients.
WGM Consulting Engineers work closely with architects and developers on new build and refurbishment projects to provide innovative solutions, including liaison with approving authorities until the successful completion of our projects.
WGM Consulting Engineers additionally provides a support service to the end user in order to ensure that the ethos of the fire strategy can be incorporated within any subsequent fire risk assessment.
Increased Revenue/Reduced Building Costs
A Fire Engineered Solution provides options in the way of active fire protection measures, which, in turn allow for the removal of cumbersome passive protection e.g. protected lobbies and additional escape stairs, while maintaining the integral safety of the occupant and building user. WGM Consulting Engineers can, through engineering and design, ensure that you maximise space available for either rent or sale thus increasing your revenue with dramatic results.
Open plan living is a concept previously restricted with the freedom of design by architects being limited. With a fully calculated Fire Engineered Solution, the options are limited only by the imagination. Domestic sprinklers, for example, can be installed as a compensating feature in developments where the Building Regulations cannot be complied with in respect of means of escape or access for the fire brigade. Some projects have reported that sprinklers has resulted in a cost saving where the building authority has permitted trade-offs in respect of means of escape facilities.