Residential

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Registered group homes and sheltered housing

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​Residents living in group homes and sheltered housing are often some of the most vulnerable occupants.  It is therefore imperative that accommodation is safe and sustainable for both the occupants and the building owners, with social landlords ensuring that homes provide and maintain a high degree of safety from fire. The installation of domestic sprinklers will help to ensure a ‘home for life’.

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​To make a building safe from fire, compartmentation needs to be in place to stop the spread of fire. This can sometimes restrict the design of the building`s internal layout. If sprinklers are fitted, the restrictions can be less, so a designer has more freedom with the internal space of the building, e.g. reduction in compartment fire rating, increase fire escape travel distance. ​

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Care homes

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​Sprinklers can give a person with mobility issues a lot more time to escape if there is a fire. Fire death and injury data indicates that those most at risk are younger people, older people, people with mental health problems, and particularly those with mobility problems who are unable to leave buildings easily.  This group of people are also be more prone to having a fire than others. 

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​Schools         

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​Schools are one of the property types where the most significant benefits can be achieved by sprinklers due to the impact of fire not only on students but also the surrounding population when a community resource is lost.

Building Bulletin 100: Design for fire safety in schools, 2007 includes an expectation that ‘all new schools should have fire sprinklers installed except in a few low risk schools’.  To this end we can work with schools, colleges and education authorities to ensure that the benefits of sprinklers are fully considered.

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​Installing sprinklers to schools reduces the damage itself to a building by suppressing and containing a fire, thus reducing the cost of repairing the damage itself. The ‘Think Sprinkler’ campaign has been run throughout fire services in the country advising people of the benefits of sprinklers, not only to suppress fires but to save lives too. What we must consider is not just the damage a fire does cosmetically to a building, but to the impact a fire has on individuals, communities and facilities. Especially in school settings where our children go to learn and we trust these to be safe environments. To gamble on not having a fire in such a situation is risky; therefore the need for sprinklers seems somewhat necessary in places such as schools where it is vital for both lives and property to be protected.

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Businesses

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​It is a recognised fact that 85% of small and medium businesses that suffer a serious fire either never recover or cease trading within 18 months. The installation of sprinklers in these types of premises will aid growth in the economy as fewer businesses will cease to trade, losses due to fire will reduce and fewer businesses will be forced to relocate often destabilising and affecting whole communities.

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The installation and use of automatic sprinklers will reduce the impact of fire on people, property, the environment and the economy.