Our Managing Director, Charles Devenish, presenting at Vision Construct 2023.
0:00 – Introduction
0:32 – Adexon Mission & Values
1:08 – Adexon Charter
1:52 – Key takeaway 1
2:34 – Key takeaway 2
2:55 – Key takeaway 3
5:02 – What is a fire curtain
6:36 – Why fire curtains
7:26 – Don’t be sold the old
9:14 – Our guide design
12:35 – What is a product standard and how does it differ from a product test
13:54 – BS 476
18:16 – Fire curtain regulations in the UK
19:57 – GNB-CPR-SG06 and OJEU
20:39 – BSI tells us
22:18 – What should you buy
23:31 – What about BS 8524-1
26:22 – Technical comparison between BS 8524 and BS EN 16034
27:23 – What are the beneficial tests in BS 8524-1
27:58 – The downsides of BS 8524-41 when compared with BS EN 16034
28:56 – What about BS 9999
30:41 – Is BS 8524-1 gone for good?
32:26 – Summary
35:10 – Q&A
Want access to the full presentation? Reach out to the team to get your copy – admin@adexon-uk.com
So today we’ve got a presentation on fire and smoke curtains and um we’re going to run through some set change improvements third party certification and regulations so just a quick introduction my name is Charles devonish I’m the managing director of adex and fire and smoke curtains this is our mission mission and
Vision so our mission is to Foster industrywide innovation and improve performance and reliability also whil ensuring that third party certification and certified products um third party certificate third party certified products and legal compliance become the norm not not they’re not always the norm currently and our vision
Is is one of sort of looking out you might say um we’re looking to make the UK the global leader in active fire and smoke curtains and that’s through quality Innovation raising performance expectations and continually improving this is our Charter this is what guides us day-to-day so legal certified and better
Just to run over that briefly so legal is products that are covered by a harmonized standard many of you might be aware of this are legally required to be C marked ours are that’s part of our Charter I’ll guarantee to you certified all our products are third party
Certified which we think is mandatory for Life Safety products and then better is we can demonstrate tangible benefits of our product design the main one in the guide design that we use and we we’ll run through that shortly so today we’ve got a stand so you can come over and talk to us
Afterwards if you got any questions there’s myself and I’m joined by Jack one of our business development Executives and the key takeaways this presentation are there’s three key pres three key takeaways um number one is that far curtain are brilliant products we’ve they’ve been around as a as a
Product for maybe 40 years and people that are familiar with them may have had headaches with them we we’ll run over some of those today and how they’ve been solved but especially if you’re an architect or a designer and you’re looking to open o open up a space and
You want to have like an Airy feel to space then fire curtains are enable you to do that and still maintain compartmentation in a fire they give you flexibility with design enable you to remove walls and avoid having to put in doors and and fire partitions key takeaway number two is
Don’t be sold the old and we’ll go into a bit more detail on this shortly but it is old designs of fire curtains that give headaches and and have traditionally given fire made fire C almost a choice of Last Resort for some people using them because of these
Headaches we’ve we’ve resolved those and we’ll go over that shortly and takeaway number three is don’t chance it so all all vertical fire curtains are legally required to be C Mark 2 harmonized standard bn1 16034 since November 19 this is a requirement of the construction product regulations which
Is a country we signed up to in 2013 and you know what we say is is don’t be talked into disregarding this you know some people might say there’s very few prosecutions under the CPR well you know that’s a risk that I wouldn’t want to go to sleep on um just because
You know if you become the first person it’s it’s it’s not it’s not good penalties for breach of the CPR do include imprisonment and and fines and you could also end up accumulating a legacy issue with um uninsurable buildings or Insurance being void in the event of a fire you know the insurers
Might not say anything to you but then in the event of a fire they may do a a a check of paperwork and find that you’ve got a non-compliant product that could create a serious issue unvalid third party certification again is don’t chance it um we’d say it’s nearly as
Imperative as legal compliance for a life safety product such as a fire curtain people can say well you know we’re a reputable manufacturer but we’ve all seen with the grenfell inquiry how you know some of the mega manufacturers in the industry like kingsan and and others um e um just forget forget the
Other names now but some some of the really big manufacturers have been seen to doing things that aren’t you know aren’t going to be best for you as a buyer with third party certification you’ve got that risk taken away that you’ve got a notified body such as
Warrington far or IFC or AP they’re actually credited by the likes of ukash and they will go in with third partcipation they actually go into office facility or the manufacturers facility and we’ll carry out an audit on production and make sure that what we’re producing week in week out is actually
The same as what was tested all those months or even years ago and they’ll make sure that the what’s arriving on site is that it got the same components same design and follows the same process through manufacturer without third party certification the risk for verifying that sits with you as a buyer or
Specifier so what is a fire curtain some of you may be familiar with this there’s um one of our sort of easy descriptions for what a fire we say it’s a modern form of a roller shooter which you may be familiar with a goal poost Arrangement there’s a barrel over the
Top which will have a curtain wrapped around it and and 80% of the fire curtain Market is those vertical fire curtains which you’ll see on the right hand side there and um they will slide down a couple of like goal posts which are the guide rails one of the benefits
With fire curtains over roller shutters is well a couple of them are they’re lighter weight um they’re more compact in design so they take up less space when you’re trying to conceal them in ceiling voids and they don’t require as much secondary steel work and structural support there’s also additional
Configurations available so as you can see here in the central picture we’ve got horizontal fire curtains so if you want to separate between floors if you have an open Atria you can do that with fire curtains obviously something that was not available with fire shutters PR previously and then conatin a fire curtains
Are um very useful we’ve got some of these going in at Liverpool football club at the moment and they have them in highend residential around staircases if you essentially want to provide protection um of an area but you don’t want any guide rails so like at Liverpool Football Club they’ve got some
Cy areas but they don’t want to have guide rails and posts because there’s a heavy footfall on on on Match days so the Constantine is like an accordion and it will um it’ll just fold up into the ceiling out of sight hopefully all the time apart from the apart from the weekly fire
Tests so why fire curtains they’re they’re great for enabling open plan designs if you’re an architect or a designer they’re less destructive once activated so you might compare them with a sprinkler system and and we you know we see you know sprinklers are great for what they do but they obviously are very
Destructive when they’re activated Maybe by mistake um you can do partial activation they’re easier to fit they very easy to fit in and design in some very high performances available so we’ve got up to 120 Minutes ew which is integrity and radiation and um up to 3 hours EI which is integrity and
Insulation for those that are familiar with the European classifications and and there are many many applications and use of them some of the benefits um they can be face fixed that we’ve already touched on compact lightweight design enabling um open plan designs and and less building work just on that key
Takeaway number two that we touched on don’t be sold the old this is the traditional way that fire curtains were designed and and many Manufacturing in the market today are still using this design what you can see in the in the middle so if you cut through one of the
Guide rails which the fabric will slide down each side of the opening the um the fabric is retained using a nut in a bolt or a popper this is this is the traditional way of doing fire curtains and and that’s great in a laboratory setting where you can set everything up
Perfectly um the trouble is is out on site where they may be installed slightly less perfectly and um and also with fabric not being a rigid um material it will move and and and and and wonder that the bolt will and what what we see regularly which gives the
Headaches is this bolt will actually be dragged into the aperture and metal and metal jams um also with the with the nut and bolt and the Poppa you’ve got penetration the fabric which is a weakness and and you can imagine if I
Put a if I put a hole in my shirt or or what have you you know it’s only a matter of time before you’ll end up with a rip or a tear and you can see that with the image on the left um what you’ve also got with this design this
Old design is the nuts and bolts or the poppers they only have say 500 mil or 200 mil so you’ve actually got gaps in between those retention bolts what this is accent this problem with the gaps is when the fabric tears and that popper
Will will fall away and as I say we see this on a weekly basis around the UK we we realized some five years ago as a company that if far were to realize their true potential we needed to overcome these three main headaches otherwise people Architects and building
CL owners and clients would keep using them as a as a product Last Resort so we set to and after about 12 months of any iterations um we’ll come back to that in a minute we came up with this guide design which we refer to it as the new
Design but it’s actually quite old now it’s five years they’re saying they’re making it’s tested and third party certified and it’s been referred to you know we’ve had at some of the events this year and earlier where some people their words not ours it’s genius so it’s um people that familiar with fire
Curtains and have the problems with them jamming and tearing they see this design and it answers all those all those issues so we’ve got a continuous retention pole in the side guide we’ve not got any of that puncturing of the fabric we’ve not got the gaps in between
The retention points and we’ve got no traveling components Fasteners which can jam into the guide so it really does solve all those headaches um we’ll just go back to the old design just so you can see it but it’s um that’s what you’ll see traditionally and this is
This is what we’ve um come up with a say some some years ago now and we just realized these headaches needed to be overcome if it was worth investing heavily which we have done subsequently in the product and in the market and and we see massive potential and um in in
The applications that these can be used and I’m just going to go back quickly to the another feature of the old design that a lot use in the UK is and you’ll see on the um where it points to L lasts less than five minutes in a far that’s
That’s pointing to the Smoke seals so a lot of fire curtains are also tested for smoke performance and the test is 1634 part three which is a cold smoke test we’re actually being asked by BSI to join some of the national committees because they’ve noticed some of the work
We’ve been doing around tests and standards and we’re pushing for higher performance we actually believe the smoke test should be a hot smoke test obviously in a fire you do get some cold smoke but the biggest killer and and the biggest cause of damage and harm um to
People and property is Hot Smoke and gases and the current test 1634 part3 only test for cold that’s why you’ll see this design on the market with the cold smoke seal so that smoke seal Works um it’s a polyproplene filament strip it’s used on fire doors on a fire door is
Used in conjunction with an interent strip so on a fire door you’ll have the cold smoke seal which will melt at about 170 degrees C and then the interesant strip will take over at 180 so you’ve got pretty much contiguous protection from smoke the trouble is on a fire curs
And you can’t have an inent strip because in the the problem is if that intermittent strip activates it then prevents deployment and you’ve not got the fire barrier at all so man facturers and ourselves you know up to 5 years ago use these cold smoke seals some use even
Draft excluders um but they don’t last if you look on the the graph there that’s the um heat curve which is the test in 1363 which is the conditions for the fire test which all fire tests lean on basically and what you can see is after
5 minutes the temperature is 576 I think it is degrees C those cold smoke seals have long since gone and we’re talking of only you know minutes into a test of a product that’s designed to last for an hour or too so what we’ve done um another
Feature as you can see there where we say fire resistant components for smoke control we’ve actually used the fire resistant fabric that is tested to 10000 de C and we’ve used that to achieve the smoke control as well and again this is all third party tested and certified so
Just we we’re moving we’re not waiting for the standard to be revised that will happen and we’re pushing for that and we’ll probably well we will be part of that um but in the meantime we’ve moved on with our design had it tested just a quick one um I don’t know you could put your hands up really who knows the difference between a product standard and a product test just it’s um no it’s okay um the the words are used interchangeably they’re two very different things so product test is like we’ve touched on a
Fire test is is a product test the smoke test is another example the cycle test for our product is they’re all examples of product tests a product standard is is better because it’s essentially an umbrella um standard that brings together a number complimenting test that suit a product
And then you get a much more holistic assessment of the product and how that will work in its real life application so for example a fire curtain will have a fire test to 1634 part one it’ll also be tested to smoke to 1634 part 3 it’ll
Also be tested to the Cycles so ours is tested from 500 Cycles up to 10,000 which I think is category one and and then other tests as well and they’re all basically it’s a much more rounded view of um of the product what we do see is some people selling fire curtains and
It’s more in the the horizontal fire curtain Mark um part of the market where it is a is a very niche market and there’s obviously a lot of investment in in doing all the tests and some people put a horizontal Market horizontal fire cut on the market just with a fire test
It doesn’t have a product standard third party certification so just touch on bs476 because this is far much much far reaching than just fire curtain so it might be more relevant to to some of you than just fire curtains so the building safety act you may have seen the uh
There out for consultation at the moment is a removal of bs476 from use and it’s a general um direction of travel really is what we’re seeing is um with bs476 is a move towards European standards and classifications in favor of in the place of British standards and
It’s a it is one of the results of grandf is a tightening up on standards and competency um and and what we know we’ve actually known this for 20 years as a country and and it’s not a great reflection on us that we’ve held on to bs476 so we’ve we’ve known since 2000
That the European fire test is a more rigorous um test so just as an example the plate thermometer used in the European fire test 1634 part one will mean that the product tested has up to 30% greater thermal exposure so we could get our fire curtain tested to bs476 and
We could achieve a 60-minute rating um or a competitor could ours was tested to the euro European fire test and and classification system 60 Minutes you could take a product tested under bs476 put it through the Europe and test and it might only achieve 45 minutes obviously that’s critically important if
You are a fire engineer and you are doing a strategy and you’re looking for 60 Minutes of integrity and you’re using the European classification and standards you could allow or somebody could put in a bs476 tested 60-minute F door or any any product as I say bs476
Applies widely and it might only give you 45 minutes against what your strategy is is designed for um the European standards classification are very rigid and rules-based use calculation methods and expert judgments that are already agreed upon and written down in a send standard so what we’ve
Allowed under the bs476 is um I think it’s the passive fire protection Forum code of practice where it’s a little bit like um you know we’ve got a product here that’s tested under 476 but we’ve got some variations of the product we’re using some different components or using
Some sizes that aren tested what we’ traditionally allowed in this country um which we’re not Advocates of is for to call in a fire engineer and you know in the reality dayto day on site a lot of pressure we’ve got hand over here you know the contractor calls them in and so
Got hand over here is this fire or going to be okay you know we’ve varied it here here and here you know your expert judgment is that okay and it’s very much an on the-day assessment and yeah that’s okay and it passes um the European system is a lot more pre-defined and and
And much more rigid boundaries um it’s more conservative to which obviously as a fire um product and system is definitely better to air on the side of caution and removes those likelihood assessments we just referred to that we see on the um you know site assessments and and and yeah we think
This should be okay the European standards get rid of that and we’re a big advocate of only installing what’s being tested you know okay big investment on the part of us manufacturers but you know we’ve seen in security for years where you know if you want to use if you’re familiar with lpcb
And LPS 1175 standards for security doors the um you know if you want to have a door a certain size with a certain Vision panel and a certain lock and a certain hinge you have to have all that tested to get the certification you know how much more so for a fire product
Where lives are dependent on it you know with that security products stop you breaking in we’re talking about Life Safety Products so we think it’s a move in the right direction only allowing tested products and we’ve already touched on the um the greater thermal exposure in the European test how how
This is relevant to fire curtains is you may be familiar with bs8 524 part one which is a British standard relating to fire curtains it’s actually recently lost its notified um notified body backing so it’s no longer available with third party certification which is really a pause on the standard if if not
Potentially an end to it but but one of the downsides of it is has 30 references to b47 six in it we have as a company have moved with the European Standard some years ago um so none of our F tests are are to that bs476 and some some people will say
There’s there’s confusion in the market we we don’t believe there is um the only the only benefit of talking up confusion in regulations around fire curtains is to serve to keep older products and older standards current and you know that’s not good for we don’t feel that’s
Good for the consum and for fire safety per se um we we’re governed by the construction product regulations you know like it or not you know since 2013 up to today and um looking well into the future we we’re governed by the CPR and the acid test under the CPR is if a
Product is covered by a harmonized standard you shall see Mark to it there’s no there’s no gray area there’s no debate on that if a if a product is covered by a harmonized standard you have to seeart that harmonized standard it’s not good enough just to seeart to a
Machinery directive you have to see Mark that harmonized standard and the only harmonized standard to available for fire curtains and it applies to Vertical fire curtains is BN 16034 people might plead for a transition period you know to to to come across it but we’ve actually known since
2016 we’ve had plenty of notice since 2016 we’ve um we’ve known since it was cited in the EUR the official Journal of the European Union 634 we knew that was going to become harmonized three years later after the coexistence period which it did there was some p push back in
This country on that becoming harmonized and covering fire curtains because as a country we wanted to protect well you know did we want to protect bs8 524 let’s put it as a question essentially accepting the harmonized standard meant the shelving essentially of the British standard so the group of notified bodies
For the construction product regulation steering group6 um in November 2018 at their 19th meeting there had been some um they determined that it was possible to see Mark operable fabric curtains as they described to 16034 there were some attempts as I say by some his country to refute that and
That was you know as all reasonable um National committees and and European committees would do so they they they listened to the the case the argument but they they determined after that they said no it does it does apply and it’s and it is becoming harmonized and going
To become legally required under the CPR so from the 1st of November um already touched on we knew since October 16 and the British SS Institute they are we talk to to them regularly um we’ve been invited onto a number of national committees bs99 bs9 91 BS 8524 part one
An international standard ISO 21524 which applies to fire curtains they are we actually think they need to do more in making people aware that um following a British standard they they have this disclaimer if you like or aware Ness note in their in their standard they say look standards aren’t the same as
Regulations you know f a standard isn’t going to guarantee you within the laws and complying with the British standard doesn’t confer Immunity on you from regulations the trouble is we did a a poll on LinkedIn earli this year we had over 12,000 Impressions we had 162 votes
And they were all very relevant people in the industry and we basically said if there’s a conflict between guidance such as British standards that’s what they are they’re just guidance and regulations such as the CPR or the fso 2005 F safety order 2005 or building regulations it is a conflict between
Guaranted regulations which one do you follow do you follow the guidance do you follow the regulations or does it depend on on certain details and 79% of people in Industry got it wrong 79% of people in the industry didn’t choose regulations all the time you know it’s
When we say it it’s very obvious but you know the number one consideration for all of us is we comply with the law and guidance is guidance and it’s no more than that you know it’s great and it should help us to fulfill the the legislation it doesn’t always there is
Sometimes is conflict and when there is conflict you know we need to make sure we’re following the the um the regulations and that’s why BSI have these notes in there so we have this little hierarchy of considerations when you’re when you’re looking at buying or specifying everything we say the number one um
Consideration is legal compliance and on that note berical fire curtains legal compliance dictates using bcn 16034 valid third party certific ification we say is the second consideration that’s what we talked about earlier about the risk and um production being being actually checked on a regular basis by an independent
Notified body rather than just taking a commercially driven manufacturer’s word for it and if we’re using third part certification as a determinate then um ISO 21524 is the standard you need to use for horizontal fire curtains and 16034 back to that standard for constantina fire curtains and then your
Third consideration is everything else so we we could talk about you know we’ve got the best design of of fire curtain in the UK um you know and service levels etc etc and and and they’re all very good and and and and very important but you know almost talking against
Ourselves is is number one you need to make sure of legal compliance and number two from a risk management perspective you need to make sure that you’re buying products specifing products with valid third party certification so what about bs8 524 it’s being a standard that been very heavily
Used in this country as I say we um we created it as a country B8 524 we’re proud of it um it was the first product standard we we touched on product SED earlier first product SED in the world that was dedicated to fire curtains that
Could as well as being a strength could have could be its actual weakness in the sense that fire are a very niche market um notified bodies who do testing certification of commercial entities like anybody else and they need to make money having a standard dedicated to a very Niche product where there’s very
Few players um in just the UK territory means is there enough business is there enough demand to justify a notified body supporting that standard what we’ve actually seen is Warrington fire pull out and we’ve seen IFC pull out and there’s no notified bodies currently currently supporting it there’s talk by
Those that like at 8524 of of more notified bodies coming on on board um that may happen it may never happen um it’s a talk you know what we know is what we have to go by is today is is what’s valid in current today um and if you look in the um
Harmonized standard that we refer to 16034 which covers fire curs and doors and other products it actually states in the harmonized standard forward it says this European Standard should be given the status of a National Standard and conflicting national standards shall be withdrawn at latest October 18 so we
We’ve spoken to BSI about this and said look you know you should 8524 should been withdrawn from the market it’s quite clearly a conflicting standard with 16034 you know give us an example of of two standards that are conf if if the if 16034 and 8524 aren’t conflicting
You know give us an example of two standards that are and where they differ technically than than than than how these two cross over so much you know 8524 and 16034 have both got the same fire test both got the same smoke test both do the same cycle test they’re both
For vertical fire curtains um they have differences but there’s so much crossover you know they’re quite clearly conflicting standards so 8 24 it doesn’t it never reached harmonized State status so it can’t offer you a route to C marking and currently it doesn’t have third party certification and you know we we hear
Advocates of the standard and say um people that have invested in it you know many many years ago and haven’t moved over to European Standard yet they they will still um talk talk about it and say it’s got beneficial tests and it and you know it’s referred to in 99 and um we
Even heard somebody saying it’s referred to in the new draft of double 991 if you speak to BSI they’ll say you should never refer to a draft um because the reality is it goes out for public consultation and then the Committees look at it and and and you know I would
Say it’ll be removed before it gets to publication um but the point is it’s not you shouldn’t be referring to a draft um let’s have a little look at a comparison between the two so this is a technical comparison between BS 8524 part1 and BSN
6034 so uh might be a little bit too small you can you can find this on our website afterwards but we’ve got a list of details so for example the first one is does the standard insist on the superior European standards and classifications such as the fire test
8524 doesn’t 16034 does so have a tick for 16034 does it insist on an extended application system again 854 doesn’t it allows the likelihood on site in the moment sort of Assessments whereas 16034 you have to follow the EXA process um the impact test 8524 has I’m not going
To run through all these under 16034 you you you have to do that under a separate harmonized standard 1192 so there’s there there’s two or three benefits we’ll look at those in a bit more detail here of um so what are the beneficial tests you know let’s be fair and
Reasonable look at 8524 is there is there any benefits and there are there’s two or three benefits so there’s the gravity fail safe test requirement short circuit test and control descent speed none of these are unique to 8 524 and we’d Advocate any responsible manufacturer and to take these
Separately as we saw with the previous table as they are available under other standards so these three benefits are no um you might say justification or or Reason to really continue using a standard that has no notified body support doesn’t offer a root to Legal compliance the downsides are more
Extensive when compared um you know there’s a number in 8524 there’s a number of what we would say superflous so certainly inferior and arguably dangerous test so we’ve got a a um an article on the website about for example the hot motor test so um under 8524 they
Have a hot motor test we we’d actually say and and basically what it essentially says is is the faet and shall be able to operate when the temperature is 400 degrees C we actually say that’s a dangerous test as it stands um without a lot more control measures
In place to be able to open a fire cut a 400 Degrees SE you’re potentially not only endangering the user of the fire curtain but you’re also potentially endangering the whole building we know that the fire Services don’t train anything over 195 degre C just to give
You a bit a context on what 400 is as a temperature but um yeah there’s there’s to to be a to open that paret and it’s a dangerous test and that’s actually an 8524 you can read more about that on the on the website so N9 um we’ve got a quote here
From the grand Fel TI inquiry from Richard Miller he was the KC lead Council for the for the the inquiry and in his um closing statements he actually referred to outdated guidance as a contributory factor to the grandell tragedy he he said behind all of these discret factors the lay complex and
Opaque peace legislation and an over Reliance by law and policy makers on guidance that includes the likes of bs99 some of which including statutary guidance was ambiguous dangerously out of date and much of which was created by non-governmental bodies and influenced by commercial interests so quite a strong condemnation there of um of
Leaning on guidance that’s maybe at a date maybe maybe influenced by commercial interest influenced by um non-governmental bodies and as de Judith Hackett has said in her inter report think it was is is you know we see people in the industry which is not a good reflection is gaming the system she
Says so you know we’ll see people that will quote something that suits their product or their the way they want to do business and they’ll offset that against you know what’s clearly regulations and what’s more current um you know it’s and and and yeah Richard Millet pronounced on
That you’ll see that um 99 was published in 2017 which is a code of practice for fire safety and design management Etc since then 16034 became harmonized and remain the only harmonized standard so that that straightway outdated 99 and 8524 third part certification was withdrawn and any fire industry
Professional would say you know that renders it non usable when there is an an alternative that is third party certified so is BS 85241 gone for good well it’s being considered for revision at the moment um we’ve as a company we’ve made extensive comments on improvements if if it’s um if it’s going
To come back out um if if it does come back out it won’t be the same as 8524 as you know it the 2013 revision there’s a high probability it won’t come back out um obviously there’s a lot of influencers and people who have invested in the standard pushing for it to be
Retained um but if that conflict of national standards test is applied to it it really is um incumbent on BSI to withdraw it you know so there wouldn’t even be a revision if it does survive that though and is somehow Justified as as not conflicting um it may come out as a
Revised very differently it may then obtain accreditation um what basically the way the way it you may be familiar with this but if we as a manufacturer decide that the new bs8 524 we want to certify our products that we would go to a notified body such as waron fire or international
Fire Consultants would say you know can you create a scheme for this product this product standard they would then look at a commercial case for it and their own bandwidth in terms of developing schemes for products if they ticked all those boxes they would then
Take it they develop that take it to a accreditation body such a ukash they would accredit the um the certification scheme and then the notified body can come back to us and offer certification a very long process it’s not a five minute so so BSC 524 is
Standard you know people say it’s coming back those Advocates are the standard do it’s it’s I wouldn’t even say it’s preten going to be months it could be could be in the Years um and obviously there millions of pounds of the F curtains going in in the meantime so we
Need you know we need to go by current standards with valid third party certification so in summary some of the um most common fire curtain problems are resolved with the modern design that’s available um we on that we haven’t protected that we haven’t patented it people have said so so why
Not um the UK Market at the moment fire curtain probably is maybe 25 30 million relatively small we actually think if if we can Elevate fire curtain from a product of Last Resort you know people have traditionally had headaches with them and stayed away from them if we can
Resolve those headaches and all Manu fact adopt a better design it’s actually good it’s it’s a win not just for the industry you know industry could become worth 100 million because a lot more people are suddenly using them it’s also a win for for for Consumer and far you
Know far safety um and we as a manufacturer will obviously benefit from that so you know we’ve got a fairly broadminded view on that what we’re saying to our competitors essentially look take take the design use it it’s you know it’s it’s infinitely better you might say significantly better at least
Than than than the old design it gets rid of those head um another point is that yeah the CPR is a legal under the CPR it’s a legal requirement to C to harmonized standard and just following a um a guidance standard doesn’t doesn’t keep you within the laws on its own hierarchy
Considerations is legal compliance valid third party certification and then everything else all the design benefits we we’ve we’ve spok about and touched on um bs8 524 part one should not be used for verical fire and that conflicts with harmonized standard 16034 99 is an example of outdated guidance referred to the grandf inquiry
Third party product certification isn’t a paner on its own do your due diligence check the product um and then the main three key takeaways are fire curtains are brilliant products please don’t be put off by old designs and headaches associated with those you know we can we can show you plenty of installations
Where where these headaches are overcome and and and the product features um don’t be sold the old don’t be talked into it and don’t chance it you know insist on third party certification and insist on make sure using legally compant products and we’ve got a couple of QR
Codes anyone wants to um scan these in or you can come across and see us afterwards on the table so we have a Reber accredited CPD we’re we’re big Advocates of continual pressure development and and educating and making people aware um so that’s a free CPD you
Can have in person and then follow us on um LinkedIn or subscribe to our fire safety insights monthly newsletter so that’s our um presentation for today on fire and smoke curtains hope it’s being of some use and if there’s any questions I’m I’m happy to happy to take them you might need to
Come a little bit closer yeah very good yeah yeah yeah com come use the make I think we’ve got a I don’t know we got a minute and there one minute yeah yeah please yeah go it’s your view let’s say whether the 47676 test should be used as well or should
The manufacturers from their side start pushing towards taking out the 476 from stands and sorry from guidance from yeah yeah if he questions if if we think bs476 should be kept hold of there’s a um is the answer is no no we should have moved over to 20 years
Ago we’ve had a bit of a protectionist view um some in the UK we’ve basically protected our own manufacturers because they’re all tested to 476 that has not actually helped us on an international um perspective or or platform if you like we’re all you know okay it means
That we our manufacturers can keep selling to the old tests and what have you but we we need to move move on European you know competitors have moved ahead as a result of having a better product standard essentially that they’re having to use to we should have
You know I say 20 years ago we should have just said look guys let’s have a transition period if we need to be two three years so be it um but today in you know 2023 we we should be saying 12 months is is more than enough as a
Transition period move across to the European standards and classifications you know straight away does that answer your question very good well thanks for listening I hope you found it of some value and if you got any questions please come across and see us thank you