BIM4Housing Group B Roundtable (AOV, Smoke dampers, Fire Dampers)
GEORGE STEVENSON (shares screen). Basically when we started in 2021 we were asked by the government to work with the Golden Thread Initiative to actually define what information was required for assets. And therefore we went to people and asked them what information would you need on an AOV? And it’s actually quite difficult to answer that question because people will say it depends on the circumstances, the context. So we ran a whole range of different Teams meetings and came up with the documents that you’ve seen. We also went through them in some detail in in-person meetings like these. All of those people there are manufacturers, we’ve got designers and operations people.
We then took that information and these are the standard questions that we asked across all of the 12 asset types. What risk does the particular asset type mitigate? What do people do to these assets to stop them from working? What information do we need to know about it to ensure it performs as required? What procedures and activities are required? What level of competence is needed? And how should product changes be recorded? So, this is what we came up with 4 years ago and we’ve basically captured the information against those for fire doors, cavity barriers and what we’re doing here is talking about dampers and AOVs and the like.
What we’ve also done subsequent to that, we’ve had a couple of specialist teams looking at certain asset types and producing some detailed guidance. So, these have largely come out of the NHS, so they’ve been repurposed for residential. And quite high quality documents, you can download them off of the BIM4Housing website. This is new, this is one on dampers, fire stopping and cavity barriers. The important thing about the Golden Thread which is the context in which we’re talking about this asset information is that you need to be able to look at how systems and components work together.
And you’ve seen this many times where we’ve got a fire breaks out in a kitchen. The thing that we’re trying to protect against in principle, the most important thing there is to stop smoke from getting into a stairwell and probably killing people. And therefore what we need initially is to make sure that we’ve got good compartmentation. And therefore anybody that’s simply focusing on fire doors, for example, unless they’re looking at the walls, the cavity barriers, the penetration seals etc, then all of those need to work. And when they fail we need a proper smoke control system, we need detection systems and we need signage to help people get out.
So this is the philosophy of the Golden Thread systems of systems that work together. And also holding the information about those in a joined up and connected way, so we can then federate information that’s coming from lots of different sources. And then we can make sure that the asset is them protecting those spaces. So that stairwell there and the office, those are what’s being protected by that individual door in that individual wall. And what we’ve tried to do is make it so that rather than, I hear it all of the time where people say well, we’ve got a Golden Thread because we’ve supplied the fire doors and we’ve put an FC code in it, so therefore that’s the Golden Thread.
Whereas what we’re actually saying is that the information needs to be usable within lots of different software applications that are doing maybe inspections. And we’ve then got that information all referenced back to the same asset so we’re building that information. And the prism through which we’ve been looking at this recently is the fire & emergency file or Regulation 38 where by law you’re supposed to have an as-built plan that shows where all of the fire critical assets are. And I’ve yet to come across one that actually does that. Also by law the Building Control or the Regulator should be asking people to sign a declaration to say that they’ve got all of the information and they’ve received it all. And also the contractor is supposed to sign a declaration.
Now people are signing these declarations it appears, but not actually checking. So we’re trying to simplify it and say OK, these are the asset types that are mentioned in the regulations and therefore what we should be doing is auditing against that. So the Taskforce that we’ve created is there as a group of knowledgeable people who can work together to actually be able to check these things. I think now what I’d like to do, the information that we’ve published over the last 4 years and we reviewed in 2023 I think is probably the most complete set of specific information about these safety critical assets. If anybody is aware of anything more complete please let us know.
But what we now want to do is make sure that is that information being understood. There’s an overwhelming amount of it because if you talk to Paul, for example, about ventilation assets he could take days explaining the detail of that. So what we’ve tried to do is distill it down into something that’s consumable. And what we now want to do is run a quick poll to see whether what has been produced, whether you’re seeing it on projects where it’s worked.
RICHARD FREER Click on the link and we can all go through the poll. OK, does the asset information you create/receive/retain for this asset type include…we’re including all of the asset types in this group…it’s AOVs, fire dampers and smoke dampers we’re lumping together here. Does the asset information you create/receive/retain for this asset type include type reference, classification and unique ID reference. How often do you get that level of detail information on those asset types? Type reference, classification and unique ID reference.
PAUL WHITE That’s what I was going to say because I don’t generate or receive any of that. And obviously you’re aware of the new DW145 which has sample schedules in it. And I’m still having to refer people to those. OK, I'll put an optimistic 25% then. Because I have seen one and I was pleasantly surprised.
RICHARD FREER Question 2, how often do you receive precise XYZ location data?
GEORGE STEVENSON Just to put a context on this, we’re working on a project at the moment and there are 140 dampers in one space. And without the XYZ locations, but certainly the XY locations you don’t stand a chance.
PAUL WHITE I've still only seen drawings, to be honest, but they've been there. So yeah.
RICHARD FREER Number 3, how often do you find do you get information on the asset types that relates it to the fire strategy? Number 4, how often do you get manufacturer and model certification and test data?
PAUL WHITE At what stage?
GEORGE STEVENSON At handover, but it needs to be for that asset, so that product for that asset.
RICHARD FREER Question 5, how often do you get design, installation and commissioning records?
PAUL WHITE That would be different, so 100% commissioning, 100% install, zero % design.
GEORGE STEVENSON That’s interesting, that’s a really important point. Are you saying what it was designed to do just isn’t provided as a set of information?
PAUL WHITE I don’t think so, not at the moment not very often. That’s what we’ve been trying to encourage with DW145 that you have a design schedule and then that starts telling you the other information like the manufacturer and the installation method and more critically, as usual, the wall. And the design information would say it’s a sleeping risk and you wouldn’t necessarily get that, although that’s what we need to say you need a fire damper with an S classification.
What I see regularly is areas where they put in just normal fusible link fire dampers and they’ve got as a for instance phased evacuation. Which means that somebody has either made the wrong decision, but you’ve got not reference to the actual design decision, it’s just we’re having these, install them and commission them.
GEORGE STEVENSON How would you expect that information should be provided? That wouldn’t simply be as an MBS spec, would it? You’d need the strategic decision.
PAUL WHITE Yes, that’s the point. So the MEP specifications, I call them kitchen sink specifications because they just put in every standard that they possibly can so they don’t leave one out. And that’s not design because this is where we get into where potentially things are changing, but we’ve still got this contractor design portion. And we know hopefully that that’s supposedly changing and we also know in parallel to that people are saying well, approved but with changes. And the issue that we have with that is if somebody hasn’t allowed you the space to put in the product at the design stage you can’t solve the problem.
So the design information and the selection, if it’s there it’s certainly not passed on because if it was passed on then you’d know what the installation was and you wouldn’t be relying on the installer and on the commissioning to choose the product. And so quite often what we have at the moment with design & build or contractor design portions is without realising it they’ve done the design work and selected a product. But they’re not worried about passing that information on, they just need to know that somebody has installed something. And up until this point again, I’m not really seeing much at the forefront.
But that information has generally speaking been lost or actually never defined. There’s just a fire damper schedule, we need 20 of these, get them in please. Martin’s on the call, you’re closer to the coalface of this with smoke control systems than I am at that stage. I have spoken to some of your colleagues and I’m getting the impression that a lot more information is going in from your point of view, I don’t know what you feel that it’s like with everybody else.
MARTIN OATES Paul, I was agreeing with what you were saying earlier. The information that we get at the backend at handover commissioning from a product perspective and a certification perspective is absolutely improving and is there, almost to get to 100% now. But the missing amount of information is how that aligns to the original design at the front end. So I agree in principle pretty much with what you’ve said there.
PAUL WHITE An average of 100% and 0% is 0, or 50% but I don’t think you want it in that form…. the point is it’s misleading, you should split them out into 3 and ask the question again.
RICHARD FREER Maintenance and inspection logs, do you receive these on the asset types? Dates, methods, results, that kind of thing.
GEORGE STEVENSON Or do you believe they’re being recorded?
PAUL WHITE I think the maintenance instructions such as they are, probably 100%. Logs are expected to be done by the people on site and I don’t think that they do them. So you won’t get a log provided with a product, you’ll get a maintenance schedule. You might get an example of a log if you’re lucky, or a reference to another document, but you won’t be given some sort of spreadsheet or anything like that. And even if you are I don’t think that people are using them because they don’t understand why they should.
RICHARD FREER So at handover you wouldn’t have a record of what’s happened in previous inspections?
PAUL WHITE No because there wouldn’t have been one. There might be now because there may be some pre-handover inspections being suggested. But that would be delivered as part of the commissioning report and then hopefully would be kept on file. But as to what anybody does onsite after that, that’s up to them.
MARTIN OATES I think in general we tend to see, the date is a given, everybody puts the date on no matter what they’ve done at what stage, but we will generally see dates and we’ll see results. And results will usually be a measurement of some form if that product has that kind of characteristic, for instance a fan or a pressure. So whether our measured results, usually via equipment, we tend to see that. But very rarely will we see the actual methodology used to obtain it. And then of course there are other products like mechanical products where there is no measurement.
GEORGE STEVENSON Can I just clarify. This is about the assets.
PAUL WHITE So if you take a smoke control system and you look at BS 9999 and 9991 it says you should be checking the smoke control system everyday, that’s the panel, looking for faults. Which I keep telling people is a bit of a waste of time because if it hasn’t gone into alarm you won’t see any faults because everything is in the place that it should be. But you should in theory be checking the physical assets every week, or a proportion of them. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a record of that.
GEORGE STEVENSON And that’s really the point. If we’re going to run a Golden Thread and inspection is a statutory thing, it should be a mandatory thing, then I think it’s reasonable that we should expect to see records of that’s what the digital record is supposed to be.
PAUL WHITE Absolutely. So if it’s happened you will get a third-party report in the system. The issue that we have with that is the third-party report in the system quite possibly tells you there’s a whole load of stuff wrong with it, but nothing is being done.
RICHARD FREER Question 7, cause and effect matrices or system integration data for active systems, do you normally receive that information? What percentage of the time do you actually receive or produce those.
PAUL WHITE They have to be there because you can’t receive without them, but whether they get handed over or put in the system I don’t know. So they’re always there, you can find them eventually, but whether they are residents of onsite I don’t know.
RICHARD FREER George, you’ve done this question on the basis of a handover, so do you think they should be there?
GEORGE STEVENSON Oh definitely.
RICHARD FREER And Paul, you’re saying that they are virtually never there.
PAUL WHITE I don’t know that they get to the user, that’s what I’m saying. But we’re working on revising 7346 Part 8 at the moment and I’ve been drafting quite a lot of that. But I’m looking for a design document to be handed over that includes all of this stuff. So that when another third-party turns up to inspect it in the future they can see what conclusions you drew and how your design is the basis of your design. And what your cause and effect is because if you don’t have that available.
Most of us would say it’s fairly obvious what should happen, but there may be separate parts of the design where there’s sub bits of the system that do something slightly different. I’ve been looking at one where you’ve got neutralising gas suppression system where some of the dampers have to be reopened again to get rid of that gas. Now that’s very specific to that design and if you didn’t know that you’d be going well, why are these opening? So these are the sort of things that you see.
ROBIN FRASER From my point of view, this is a little bit out of what we get involved with because we’re involved in nitty-gritty. I was trying to answer your questionnaire here in terms of what I feel our internal techy team might come across.
GEORGE STEVENSON That’s exactly right, we’re just trying to get a feel from the industry.
RICHARD FREER Change history and changeability, such as product swaps, upgrades, replacements. How often do you receive or produce that?
PAUL WHITE Zero as far as I’m aware at the moment. You just get told that something has happened, nobody is tracking it.
MARTIN OATES I was going to be kind and put 25% just in case somebody did.
RICHARD FREER What evidence do you get of competency of the individuals undertaking work?
PAUL WHITE From my point of view very little because some people must have it, but when you talk to people you understand that they clearly haven’t got any clue about what they’re doing. Particularly with fire damper rectifications. I went somewhere and somebody’s rectified it by just chucking a whole load of bat in. And they said we don’t know what the product is and it was really obvious what the product was. And if you’re working on them every day then you know what the products are, or at least you should do because you should be competent. And they just rectified something in completely the wrong way.
MARTIN OATES Interestingly in some areas the level of competency that sits behind an asset is a hidden area because the ultimate certification of that asset demands the competency that sits behind its manufacturer and its completion. So for instance, if you look at an AOV that’s the N12-101 Part 2 and it’s certified with a CE mark and a DOP to declare its performance and place it on the market with a notified body of reference on there. Now that’s subject to a third-party auditing process to complete that product, but that information of who that was and their competency doesn’t sit behind that documentation to certify it and place it on the market.
GEORGE STEVENSON I think we can vote on this and agree that there doesn’t seem to be a proper competency framework in the industry for doing that.
PAUL WHITE AOV Nshevs, they are slipping through the net. I’m doing some work on that with Steve Gore at Actionaire and Mr McSoley, we’re trying to put some competency in place in that, certainly with respect to the design guide. But unfortunately because you have all of these lists, if you’re not on the list you don’t have to be done. And it’s difficult.
RICHARD FREER The last question, do you receive records of works resulting from tasks identified in FRAs being completed? How often do you think they’re actually done?
PAUL WHITE I don’t think they have been done yet because people are still arguing about having to do it. How much?
RICHARD FREER The prime purpose of this meeting is to check for any updates. The vast bulk of what we’ve got in these documents has been through hundreds of people. In fact I think you Paul were the last person to actually go through the last version. That was two years ago. The vast bulk of what we’re looking at are not things that change. A requirement that X person has a level of competency to do their job is not something that’s going to change in 2 years or 50 years. The vast bulk of what we’ve got there, and probably 50% of it, actually is consistent throughout all our guidance recommendation documents.
So it will be relatively minor things that we’re looking at. We can’t do it all in 20 minutes the document, but the purpose of this meeting is to introduce the documents to people who have never seen them….and they can go away and put in any input that they have. So it’s going to be a bit of a skim run through. The most obvious thing we’ll be looking at is legislation changes, guidance changes, that sort of thing. Or anything that’s happened or new that’s come along.
PAUL WHITE I think the responsibilities part of the new legislation, I don’t think we were really considering that 2 years ago. And it generally speaking couldn’t be clearer. If you select something you’re the designer…
RICHARD FREER Let’s do it real world looking at a document. Paul, you’re saying the responsibility side, what would that come under? In terms of what we’ve done. We’re looking at risks that an AOV mitigates, risks that an AOV is susceptible to, so it wouldn’t come under there. Would it come under information?
PAUL WHITE it will come under remediation. So, if you’ve found a risk then how do you remediate it?
GEORGE STEVENSON I think it’s a task, under the section…
RICHARD FREER Section 3 I think. Let’s start there. Jiss, skim through for people that haven’t seen this. Then we go onto what information is required to ensure that an AOV performs correctly. What are the requirements, specification, performance, materials, construction, installation, these are all things that we’ve identified. Which you may look at and say that we’ve missed something out or something is not correct. Number 3, what tasks/methods/statements/procedures are required to ensure an AOV is installed, commissioned, inspected and maintained properly? We start this off actually with requirements from draft BS8644.
MARTIN OATES Digital management of fire safety, BS8644.
GEORGE STEVENSON We had a fair few people on this, Will Perkins was heavily involved in this as well.
MARTIN OATES I’ll speak for Will on this one. This is about the information exchange points on the Gateway processes. It’s the overlap of the digital information as we go through the various RIBA stages and Gateways. That’s why that went in.
RICHARD FREER Let’s scroll down, installation, have a flick through that. Is there anything there Paul that would come under responsibilities that you’re talking about? So basically in terms of installation of AOVs, is there something or some angle or perspective that we should have included that we haven’t?
PAUL WHITE At what stage of the process is this?
RICHARD FREER Installation.
PAUL WHITE Actually at installation. So, what we’re saying with regards to the fire dampers and the smoke control dampers is that there should be a continuation of the design schedule against the asset number. Where the installer signs to say that they have installed it following the instructions.
RICHARD FREER With AOVs.
PAUL WHITE To my mind it would be the same thing. They’ll be a design schedule for how they’re selected, it can be very similar to the fire damper one. And then you have the installation schedule where they install it and they take some photographs, particularly where there is anything that will be hidden during the installation. And then they give their agreement that they’ve installed it correctly against the design selection. So you’re looking for evidence that the installation has been carried out against the manufacturers instructions. And some photographic evidence which is becoming more and more important and people are accepting more and more.
GEORGE STEVENSON So we need to add photographic evidence into that as well.
RICHARD FREER Maintenance.
PAUL WHITE I think that inspections should come before maintenance.
GEORGE STEVENSON We don’t have anything for inspection, do we?
PAUL WHITE Because you won’t know that you’ve got to do maintenance unless you’ve inspected it.
GEORGE STEVENSON You’re quite right, for some reason we don’t have an inspections section. Martin, is that something that you’d be able to help with?
MARTIN OATES My comment was probably going to be relevant to documentation that’s out there now and there has been of course a change since the date of this document. And that is there as a new SCA guidance document out on maintenance of life safety systems which certainly has inspection and maintenance in there now.
GEORGE STEVENSON Is that something we could copy out into this?
MARTIN OATES I’d refer back to that document because of course it has been drafted by the SCA, so it details exactly what you need to do.
GEORGE STEVENSON I think we’d want to refer to the document, absolutely. But what we’re trying to do is make this so it’s not simply a document of references. So I’d like somebody that knows what they’re doing to look at that document and pick out some bits that make sense. Is that doable?
MARTIN OATES It’s worth looking at George, and then seeing if there are specific actions for specific assets. If that’s the case yes, if it just says visually look at it then of course you’re best to refer to the document. So it’s a case of someone from the damper side looking at that. Someone from the AOV side saying look, are there exact instructions of what to do for visual and maintenance for that asset or is it generic by the document.
GEORGE STEVENSON Is there somebody in SE that could help with that?
MARTIN OATES I think we can look at the AOV side.
GEORGE STEVENSON OK and we can perhaps ask Steve Gore to do the same.
RICHARD FREER So what level of competency training needs to be in place? Basically this whole section is virtually identical on all of the pieces of guidance, except on the occasion that there is something specific. Is there anything specific for AOVs? Any specific training or requirements?
MARTIN OATES It would probably generally fall under the SD! 19 audited scheme, UCAS IFC. I think you’ve already got it in there.
PAUL WHITE There’s a lot of work going on with regard to competency at the moment and competency frameworks. Unfortunately AOVs NSHEVS seem to have fallen through the net slightly, but Steve Gore and myself, we’ve been trying to champion that to find out how we can get it back in. The other thing is that has anybody told you about the ASFP design guide for passive fire protection? That is in progress and there will be an NSHEV section in there about how to select and design and go through the next processes. But there isn’t any scheme that you could prove your competency for installing an NSHEV at the moment, but we’re very close to there being one for ductwork and dampers generally.
MARTIN OATES Are they relating that back to the facade industry as well? Because ultimately in many cases that NSHEV is, let’s not call it a tested window but an NSHEV is a window with an actuator tested to the standard. So its installation could go into a curtain walling or a hole in the wall.
PAUL WHITE Yes, so that information should follow the manufacturer’s, but the key point is with competence somebody has assessed that individual’s capability of actually doing that.
MARTIN OATES It’s a tested smoke vent going into a facade application, isn't it?
PAUL WHITE Yes. What I’m saying is the whole point of this competency framework is to check that the people who are doing it can prove that they’ve been assessed to doing it right. And that’s the sort of stuff that SDI 19 eventually will rely upon because somebody has been on a course and they’ve been assessed over a period of time so that they can demonstrate that they know what they’re doing. And there’s also always going to be a level of CPD (Continuing Professional Development) even though you may not consider these people as professionals in the same way that we might think. They will still need to be assessed on a 3 or 4 yearly basis to prove that their skills and knowledge and behaviour are still up-to-date.
RICHARD FREER So basically now right at this moment, it’s all wrapped up in SDI 19, there’s nothing else that we need to include.
PAUL WHITE Yeah but SDI 19 and they will tell you themselves, they do not assess individuals’ competencies, they assist the competency of the organisation.
MARTIN OATES And check the certification there, Richard. They’d look for the N12 101 Part 2 certification of the NSHEV and that would tick the box. The SDI 19 process would check the certification that the smoke vent specialist has installed a compliant product.
PAUL WHITE Yes, but not necessarily that the individuals are competent to install it. It's so ridiculous, but that’s how it is.
GEORGE STEVENSON Paul, that’s very, very common across the industry. And what we’re trying to do is see, for example there it says certification with a suitable third-party accreditation provider. And people are telling us that people like BM Trada aren’t adequate. They’re not a suitable third-party accreditation provider because they’re not actually training the individuals, they’re training the supervisors. So is there a suitable third-party accreditation for AOVs?
PAUL WHITE There’s two things here, OK. Anybody can go onsite as a learner, if that’s the right word. So just a like a tradesman or apprentice, that sort of level. The problem with that is and I’m saying theoretically, they should be under the control of somebody who is competent. So if their supervisor who is supervising the work of somebody who is doing an installation because everybody has to learn, when we haven’t even dared talk about any of this yet. As Martin well knows in the SCA we’re talking about getting individuals to be able to work on their own,
GEORGE STEVENSON What we’re talking about here, it’s my view from listening to everybody is that there are no certification schemes that certify individuals.
PAUL WHITE There’s no routes to competency. Don’t confuse competency with the ability of a company. So you've got organisational capability and individual capability, yeah.
GEORGE STEVENSON I think this is very clear, it’s the individual. So I think we should remove it, not the whole paragraph.
RICHARD FREER Number F, installers should have manufacturer led product specific installation training in addition to any formal UKAS accreditation. This document isn’t to say what exists now. This document is to say what we think should exist.
PAUL WHITE That statement is true but it also goes with the other two things as well. So that is an example of continuing professional development, not evidence of competency. Because it’s training and the analogy I use, if I sat you all down and trained you and there was a series of desks in there with monkeys on them I would hope that I could send you out on site and you could install something, whereas the monkeys can’t.
RICHARD FREER Believe me, I’ve had 5 years of Debbie Carlton telling me the difference between training and competence. So, installers should have manufacturer led product specific installation training, so it’s the training that’s the problem. So what should we call that?
PAUL WHITE No, training is absolutely fine.
RICHARD FREER Because you can train a monkey but it doesn’t mean that they can do it.
PAUL WHITE Yes, but that’s different. Training, that is training, but instead of formal UKAS accreditation it’s in addition to any competency certification.
RICHARD FREER In addition to any competency certification, Jiss, change the last 3 words of F.
PAUL WHITE And if you want to put in brackets after it CPD then put that.
MARTIN OATES You want to put certification/accreditation, if there are areas that do have accredited installers.
PAUL WHITE No, they’ll be certified installers because accreditation goes for company capability and certification goes for individuals.
RICHARD FREER The reason I’ve let this run on a little bit is because smoke dampers and fire dampers are virtually identical, there’s like 90% of it that’s exactly the same. There are obviously differences, but they’re small in our document.
GEORGE STEVENSON Will Pitt has told me, Paul, that there is no such thing as a smoke damper.
PAUL WHITE it’s best to call them…FD fire damper is an integrity only damper.Motorised fire damper MFD with an ES classification. And the other one is a smoke control damper because that’s what they’re called on the standard. So don’t call them anything else because all of those relate to the standards that define them. It’s a smoke control damper, not a smoke damper. So, FD, MFD, SCD. We don’t need motorised in front of SCD because they have to have a motor, so it takes out all of the confusion if you just stick to those three definitions.
ROBIN FRASER Yeah, I can back up Paul 100% there from our point of view, yeah, absolutely. Our CPDs refer to those devices exactly as Paul does.
PAUL WHITE We’re trying to introduce that slowly into the industry and the biggest issue is Approved document B, which still refers to fire and smoke dampers. And until that changes, the confusion will not go away.
RICHARD FREER Question 2 is about information. We’re looking for responsibility, aren’t we? There are responsibilities to have information now.
GEORGE STEVENSON I think that’s a really good point. Should we have a named person or a named entity as the person that’s responsible for all of these things?
PAUL WHITE Can I just briefly share something…You know this design document runs on and on and you're probably both well aware of what Mr McSoley’s selection sheets that have got lots and lots and lots of small writing on, that’s all going to go into this thing…(INCOMPREHENSIBLE AUDIO)…the ASFB is on its way.
RICHARD FREER OK. So they're going to say that you must have this person who's responsible for the data.
PAUL WHITE Yes, that fits in the government scheme of things. So if you're following a person sits here, you're following this process. This person sits here and they're really thinking it all through. So I mentioned earlier (shares screen)…shortened indicative design schedules, whoever is designed, so you know the entity which is the point that you were making earlier. This is where you have to set the asset number. You’ve got a location reference and that can be definitely be detailed or whatever…you realised that each wall is now going to be an asset, or each part of each wall needs to be an asset because if you don’t know what the wall is you can’t start the whole of the process.
Because that’s the first thing that you’ve made before you continue. This is for fire dampers, so you’ve got an FD or an MFD. The designer has taken the wall, looked at the space risk which a lot of you will have heard about, the sleeping risk or not. Then you’ve got the classification, a type, the nominal size and the manufacturer and installation method X. So, that’s all of the information. That’s probably going to be more columns than that, but that’s the kind of thing that you’re looking for. The point is that goes for pipes and cables, for penetration seals, it goes for ducts.
And then underneath that you’ve got a whole load of other things like Part L energy usage that if you use an FD it’s got less pressure drop, but if you use an MFD you’ve got to consider that because the pressure drop is higher so the fans are bigger. That’s a very, very simple thing of this. And then what you’ve got after that, this is the installer checklist. So this extends from the design bit of the schedule, but you’re then signing to say with a name here that you’ve installed it according to the design. And then you’ve got photo references that go in there and you’ve got access confirmed from both sides.
And again, that’s going to be more complicated, but we didn’t want to put that in the document, not in this document. So you’ve got your design here and then that’s expanded into your install, but you’ll know which bits there because the installer’s name r the company name will be above here, as the design one will be there.
GEORGE STEVENSON Paul, is this the next stage on from the spreadsheet that Paul McSoley gave me?
PAUL WHITE Yeah, this is published, this isn’t the ASFP design guide, this is DW145 which got published in March and April. So this is all, I’m not going to say public domain because if you’re not a member it’s very expensive. But it’s public domain information that certainly all of our BESA members should be following. And then after that, this is why I keep saying about inspection. You’ve got all of the information that you’ve all seen before, it’s very similar to AB22. And then there’s all sorts of other information about making sure that you’re putting it in properly.
And then this is the actual design part where we’ve looked at it a bit more in depth…(INCOMPREHENSIBLE AUDIO)…installation methods. This competency, and then there’s a series of, this is Type 1. So again, it’s the same thing that you’re following on from the schedule. ASFP design guide will be out probably around the end of this year or early next year… I just thought it was worth showing you that. I can't. I can't show you the ASFP book yet because I'm not allowed to so.
This one’s from BESA, it’s called DW145, and it's specifically for fire dampers, but it would be very similar for smoke control dampers so. I don't quite know how the ties in with SFG 20, but SFG 20 is way behind what it should be. So it’s…
RICHARD FREER What I'm getting at is this a government initiative or is it a trade association?
PAUL WHITE No Trade association initiative, yeah.
RICHARD FREER And the members are expected to follow that?
PAUL WHITE Yes. And we’ve had lots of discussions about that, but what I’ve been trying to do recently is I’ve been telling people that this isn’t necessarily now about the safety of the people of the buildings that they’re doing it, this is about the longevity of their businesses. Because if they don’t do it properly and they get caught out, that’s it, everybody is out on the street because it’s getting so complicated that the flexibility and bluntly. Because I’ve had to explain to people you’ve gone and done a fire damper inspection, the person that the building you inspected, the person has no idea about any of this stuff. You can’t expect them to know what level of inspection that they need. What they want is a report from you saying that their building is compliant. And if you’ve given them a report they think it’s compliant because they don’t know how to read the report. So you’re taking responsibility, they think you’re telling that it’s compliant. And they don’t know, that’s why they put you in there.
RICHARD FREER They haven’t got the competence to make the decision. Right, I want to finish this document. We’re going to 3, I think you’ve covered most of this Paul, haven't you?
PAUL WHITE It’s a while since I looked at it but yeah. I’ve generated no end of stuff since then, so I wouldn’t mind having a quick look and going through it again.
RICHARD FREER That being the case we have some free time, so what I’m going to suggest is George, why don’t you give everybody the heads up on where we’re going with this and the Taskforce.
GEORGE STEVENSON (shares screen). Where I’m trying to go with this is that the industry, because people have been waiting for the government to actually be explicit in terms of what doesn’t work, then people do anything…(INDECIPHERABLE AUDO)…And that's in case in the in the supply chains, because we're working on schools at the moment and the Department for Education are going through people like…and the like…and they're advising the supply chains differently according to how they’re interpreting stuff.
So what we’re trying to do within BIM In Asset Management is provide an expert group who doesn’t understand the detail, but they understand bits of the detail. And they can work together to provide a coordinated level of expertise that they get paid for. So, that’s really where we’re trying to go with the Golden Thread Taskforce. So, for example, being able to audit the Regulation 38 handover information, at a very basic level to say what are the systems that have been installed? And do we have the right information about them?
And these are the things that we think are fundamentally required. Now, you need a lot more that this Paul, but the point is if you’re not even getting this bit right. So that’s at the moment where we are with the organisations that are involved and lots of different PVCBs are on there as well as part of the Taskforce. And what we’re trying to do is work collaboratively to pull together, like SE Control, people in that community. and where we’re going with it is to say basically we’ve got a market place…people have got skills, so experts…(INDECIPHERABLE AUDIO)…to actually come up with…trust relationship.
…so software actions that the team can use and we're going to licence those software applications to the team so that they can use them for a client rather than them having to buy them. So the idea basically is to be able to do things like 360 reality capture which I personally think is hugely important now. And also various different inspection apps and things like that and stuff for doing life cycle management. I’m just putting that in place because I think that that’s something that we can take all of the collaboration that we’re doing and turn it into something that people can earn money from Paul, which I’ sure is music to your ears.
PAUL WHITE Yes, well, I do a lot for free, so yes.
GEORGE STEVENSON Exactly, so where we’re going with this, this is just an example of what we’ve done just with simple ChatGPT, just knowing the right prompts to make. We’ve taken the 12 guidance documents that we’ve got which are each 20 pages, quite dense. And we’ve then run through and said OK which risks are common to each of them? Which information is common to each of them? So this is just a very simple example here of being able to use AI to simplify the way information is going to be consumed.
Now clearly there is a hell of a lot that is missing from that and therefore we can have various different agents that we can produce. And again, I want this to be a collaboration where we can bring together people that have got the knowledge and then we can then develop as a collective the right requirements. What do we need answers to? And why do we need them? This is where I’m going with it ultimately, to be able to say let’s have some AI agents that are representing certain stakeholders with certain information…
(INDECIPHERABLE AUDIO)…Huge amount we we’re…7000 documents in the O&Ms, there's about 20 BIM models and there’s COBie data and the schedules and none of it ties up. So, what we want to do is use the tools that we’re developing in Active Plan, but other people are developing as well there’s various other applications, bring them together and make them a coordinated solution that can satisfy real world problems for clients. Because all too often what’s happening is that people are implementing software and they are putting their own standards and their own classification and things like that in it and therefore it becomes a nightmare because nothing matches up.
And we’re also, just finally with this, working with BESA, CIBSE and there is a team of people from RICS as well, to try and align Uniclass, NRM, SFG20 and we’re now adding some more to it that we’re familiar with, from an asset management perspective. What we want to do is spin off from this a follow up session if you’re interested in working with us to turn this into something that is the next stage. Because we’ve done some brilliant work in the past of producing documents, but do people read them? Can they consume them?
RICHARD FREER Just to be very clear, this isn’t just about software and tools, this is very much about people, expert experience involvement, which is absolutely essential. It was just sounding a bit software orientated and that’s part of it, but it’s the people that are going to make it happen or not.
PAUL WHITE Yeah, so George intimated something in an email that he sent me before and it’s the teaching of the AI that worries me because it’s garbage in garbage out, like any programming is. And you need to make sure that it’s very deep and yeah, I’m extremely interested in that.
RICHARD FREER The AI is second, we’re using that…
PAUL WHITE No, but that’s where it’s going to end up because things move so fast now that those are the tools that people want…and one of the things I thought it through was if we came up and we design a building and then the first thing that somebody will say is optimise this building for cost…(INCOMPREHENSIBLE AUDIO)…And somebody thought this was the best model to get optimised again and the next thing we'll end up is…(INCOMPREHENSIBLE AUDIO)…Because it's something it's not out of control and it's optimise it to the extent that it has no clue there's certain things that you can't optimise.
RICHARD FREER And the more times with AI that it’s working on its own data, the more times that it does that the further away it gets from the original instructions. Every time, even at the most basic level, but certainly at complicated level. So you do have to know what you’re doing.
PAUL WHITE I know and it fascinates me, so I’d like to have a talk with you offline about that at some point because I’d love to know how it goes about it.
RICHARD FREER What I’m going to suggest is and actually we’re doing this with all people who want to get involved in this. If you want to learn more about what we’re doing with the Taskforce in all of its forms then put in the chat ‘Taskforce’ and you can have a 15 minute chat with George or one of the members of the steering committee on this and just learn if it’s for you.
PAUL WHITE My point of view, despite the potential that there might be some business out of it is I just want it to be right. I can’t put it in any other terms. It's got to be right and it’s got to help everybody and everybody has got to keep doing the same thing. Because I'm so fed up with people saying, where does it tell me I have to do this? Well, it shouldn't have to because you should know.
RICHARD FREER But the more people we’ve got involved in the process in the collaboration, the more right it’s going to be, isn’t it?
PAUL WHITE Not necessarily, but anyway, there’s other pressures to make things simpler and there’s commercial pressures and all sorts of other things. That’s why it’s got to be right…
RICHARD FREER Absolutely, but we don’t have any commercial pressures, we’re a voluntary organisation.
PAUL WHITE No, but a lot of the people that are on that list have got commercial pressures. It’s a bit like standards development.
CHAT
Paul White (External)…https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2023/911/part/2/made#:~:text=CHAPTER%204,General%20duty
George Stevenson (External)…. There is no such thing as a smoke damper. Correct terms are Fire Damper (FD) Motorised Fire Damper (MFD) and smoke control damper (SCD). Smoke control dampers are tested to different standards. The industry gets very confused with this terminology. from Will Pitt
Paul White (External)… Taskforce
Academic Structured Summary
1. Context and Golden Thread Foundations
- George Stevenson reviewed origins of BIM4Housing Golden Thread work, launched in 2021 to define asset information requirements across 12 safety-critical asset types.
- Questions guiding the framework: What risk does the asset mitigate? How can it fail? What information ensures performance?What procedures/competence are needed? How should product changes be recorded?
- Stevenson: “Unless you’re looking at the walls, the cavity barriers, the penetration seals etc., then all of those need to work [together].”
- Golden Thread philosophy: system-of-systems approach with federated, joined-up data to support Regulation 38 compliance.
2. Regulation 38 and Taskforce Role
- Requirement: as-built plans showing fire-critical assets, with signed declarations from contractors/regulators. Rarely achieved in practice.
- Stevenson: “People are signing these declarations it appears, but not actually checking.”
- Taskforce created to audit and verify asset information, drawing on multi-disciplinary expertise.
3. Poll Results – Asset Information Quality
- Coverage uneven across attributes (type reference, classification, ID, XYZ location, fire strategy links, certification, commissioning, maintenance logs).
- Paul White: “100% commissioning, 100% install, zero % design” — highlighting missing design intent records.
- Maintenance logs rarely provided; inspections expected but seldom recorded or shared.
- Cause-and-effect matrices often exist but are not consistently handed over to end-users.
- Change history, competency evidence, and FRA remediation records generally absent.
4. Competence and Training Issues
- Lack of individual competency certification schemes for AOVs/NSHEVs; current frameworks focus on organisational capability (e.g., SDI 19).
- White: “There’s no routes to competency. Don’t confuse competency with the ability of a company. So you've got organisational capability and individual capability.”
- Proposal: manufacturer-led training + CPD + independent certification for individuals.
5. Terminology and Standards
- Clarification: correct terms are FD (fire damper), MFD (motorised fire damper), SCD (smoke control damper).
- Confusion persists due to outdated references in Approved Document B using ‘smoke dampers’.
- White: “Stick to those three definitions [FD, MFD, SCD]. We don’t need motorised in front of SCD because they have to have a motor.”
6. Responsibilities and Documentation
- New legislation clarifies responsibilities: designers responsible for asset selection, installers must evidence compliance, and inspectors must record checks.
- Proposals: introduce photographic evidence of installations, explicit inspection stage before maintenance, and installer signatures against design schedules.
- White: “Inspections should come before maintenance. Because you won’t know that you’ve got to do maintenance unless you’ve inspected it.”
7. Digital Tools, AI and Collaboration
- Stevenson promoted AI use to summarise guidance and identify common risks/information across asset types.
- Concerns raised about ‘garbage in, garbage out’; need for expert oversight to ensure reliability.
- Future direction: coordinated Taskforce leveraging AI, 360 capture, inspection apps, and aligned standards (Uniclass, NRM, SFG20).
8. Conclusion
- Meeting reinforced gaps in asset information quality, design record handover, maintenance/inspection logs, and competence frameworks.
- Key next steps: refine guidance, incorporate responsibilities, align terminology, and develop competency certification for individuals.
Key Risks & Action Points – Group B Roundtable
Key Risks Identified
- Regulation 38 compliance often signed without proper verification (‘tick-box compliance’).
- Missing design intent information: commissioning/install records exist but no design documentation.
- Maintenance and inspection logs rarely handed over, leaving gaps in ongoing compliance evidence.
- Competency gaps: lack of individual certification schemes for AOVs/NSHEVs; reliance on organisational capability only.
- Confusion over terminology (FD, MFD, SCD) and inconsistent use of standards, causing misinterpretation.
- Responsibility silos: unclear accountability between designers, installers, and inspectors.
- AI and digital tools risk being ineffective without quality input data (‘garbage in, garbage out’).
Recommended Action Points
- Strengthen Regulation 38 verification by requiring independent checks and photographic evidence of installations.
- Establish structured handover packs including design records, commissioning certificates, and cause-and-effect matrices.
- Develop individual competency certification pathways (manufacturer training + CPD + independent assessment).
- Standardise asset terminology (FD, MFD, SCD) across documentation and align with updated regulatory language.
- Mandate pre-occupation surveys and risk assessments to validate installation quality before handover.
- Encourage cross-discipline collaboration within the Taskforce to bridge designer–installer–inspector gaps.
- Pilot AI tools in a controlled environment with expert oversight to ensure reliability before wider adoption.