Fire Compartmentation
Protect your building's critical defence against fire
Fire compartmentation serves as your building’s invisible shield against disaster. When properly maintained, these critical barriers can contain fires for up to 120 minutes – providing crucial time for safe evacuation and emergency response.
Our expert team at Indepth Services brings over 40 years of experience in designing, implementing and maintaining these life-saving systems as part of the PTSG group, giving you access to comprehensive building safety expertise across multiple specialisms.
What is Fire Compartmentation?
Fire compartmentation inhibits the spread of fire and smoke in a building. Fire-resistant compartments are part of a building’s life safety structural design. Their critical function is to slow the spread of fire and smoke and assist occupants’ safe escape should a fire break out. Compartmentation also assists property preservation, as fire is more effectively contained supporting the efforts of emergency services.
Why Choose Indepth Services?
As part of the PTSG group, Indepth Services combines decades of specialist fire safety expertise with the resources and reliability of one of the UK’s leading building safety organisations. Our comprehensive approach means we don’t just install or inspect your fire compartmentation – we understand how it integrates with your building’s entire safety ecosystem, from access systems to glazing, ensuring complete protection for your property and occupants.
Compartmentation is used to:
Escape Route Management
- Divide or sub-divide escape routes in a building, such as stairwells and corridors
- Prevent bottlenecks in escape routes
- Provide multiple options for safe evacuation in more significant buildings
Risk Reduction
- Decrease the risk for emergency services
- Enable safer firefighting operations
- Protect emergency responders during operations
Fire Containment
- Contain fire in smaller areas, such as a single residence in a high rise block
- Alleviate the urgency of the complete evacuation of a building
- Limit property damage through effective containment
Flexible Evacuation Options
- Provide multiple evacuation routes in larger buildings
- Enable horizontal movement before vertical evacuation (for example, hospitals can move patients ‘across’ a building before proceeding to lower floors)
- Support phased evacuation strategies
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Compartmentation Plans
Your fire compartmentation plan will detail the various compartments that make up your building and the rating each has been designed for. A rating is typically indicated in minutes – i.e. the number of minutes the compartment will be resistant to fire.
Approved Document B, Volume 2 (2019) describes effective compartmentation as follows:
“Effective compartmentation relies on both of the following:
a. Fire resistance should be continuous at the joint between elements forming a compartment. b. Any openings between two compartments should not reduce the fire resistance.”
At Indepth Services, our specialists ensure your compartmentation plans are not only compliant but optimised for your specific building requirements, drawing on our extensive experience across thousands of commercial and residential properties nationwide.
Maintaining your fire compartment
A fire compartment is typically constructed with:
Structural Elements:
- Walls
- Floor slabs
- Soffits
Openings and Glazing:
- Fire doors
- Fire rated glazing
Sealing and Protection:
- Fire stopping materials for sealing joins around the perimeter of each component
- Fire and smoke dampers installed in ductwork where site services breach the compartment (for example, air conditioning)
Joins around the perimeter of each component are sealed using fire stopping materials to maintain the fire rating of the compartment. If site services are forced to breach the compartment, for example, air conditioning, fire and smoke dampers are installed in the ductwork.
Checking the integrity of your fire compartment against your compartmentation plan is an essential element of your health and safety risk assessment.
The PTSG Advantage in Fire Compartmentation
Our position within the PTSG group means we can offer unparalleled expertise in fire compartmentation systems. With over 40 years of combined experience and access to PTSG’s nationwide network of specialists, we provide comprehensive solutions that extend beyond basic compliance. Our integrated approach means we understand how fire compartmentation works alongside other building safety systems, ensuring your entire property protection strategy is seamlessly coordinated.
Fire Compartmentation Surveys
A compartmentation survey will check the overall condition of your fire compartment and ensure it meets the requirements set out by your building’s design.
Given the nature of modern buildings, we should expect changes, such as renovations, installation of cabling and other services that are likely to breach the fire compartment. As these changes can occur at any time, a regular inspection of your fire compartment is prudent for robust fire safety.
Our comprehensive PTSG-standard compartmentation survey includes:
- Inspection of the condition of your fire compartment
- An assessment of the effectiveness of any fire stopping repairs/remedial works that have been carried out
- Checks on any seals applied to the compartment edges
- An assessment of the materials used and installation competency of any fire stopping works
- Reporting to include any omissions or defects in the fire compartment
- Recommendations for the rectification of faults and deficiencies
Integration assessment with other building safety systems
No paper trail is no excuse
Inspecting your fire compartmentation and rectifying issues is critical for fire safety compliance, even if your building’s compartmentation plan is lost, incomplete or inaccurate.
The options available to building owners and operators who do not have complete records vary from:
- Comprehensive fire safety survey – including forensic analysis of components to test their fire rating
- Basic survey – to identify generic issues from a visual inspection
- Custom variations – to suit the needs of your building and fire safety compliance objectives
The purpose, desired outcome, and directives of your survey should be agreed upon in advance. This ensures you achieve the level of reporting and documentation you need.
We have the resources and expertise to handle even the most complex compartmentation challenges, with access to specialised testing equipment and forensic analysis capabilities that smaller providers simply cannot match.
How we can help
Talk to our team on 020 8661 7888 about:
- Compartmentation surveys with PTSG-standard reporting
- Compliant compartment remedial works
- Integrated building safety solutions
- 24/7 emergency support across the UK
- Nationwide coverage through our PTSG network