Vegetation Management – Hydrants
Ensure fire safety in your strata building by maintaining vegetation clearances & visibility around hydrant boosters and valves. Learn about essential standards, real-life examples, and tips for keeping hydrants accessible and vegetation managed. Prioritize safety with expert advice from Civil Fire.
5-Yearly Servicing of Hydrant & Sprinkler Systems
With the legislation of AS1851 in NSW coming into force in 2025, the 5-yearly service of the fire hydrant system and sprinkler system
AS1851 in NSW
The Australian Standard for the Routine service of fire protection equipment, AS1851-2012, is being legislated in NSW as of 13th February 2025. What does this mean for building owners? Find out more.
Fire Dampers
Fire dampers are an essential safety measure that helps to prevent the spread of fire and smoke in buildings. Dampers belong to the ‘passive fire protection’ family.
Ionisation Vs Photoelectric Smoke Alarms
There are two main types of smoke alarms available on the market: ionisation smoke alarms and photoelectric smoke alarms. While both types of smoke alarms can detect smoke and save lives, they operate differently, and there are advantages to using one type over the other in specific settings.
Hydrostatic Testing of Fire Hydrants
Hydrostatic testing is a process of testing the integrity and strength of a pressurized system, such as a fire hydrant system, to ensure that it can withstand the required pressure and flow.
Can I install downlights, ducted air conditioning, ceiling exhaust fans or manholes in my unit ceiling?
Yes… but first you would need to:
1. Obtain approval from the strata plan (as they typically own the ceilings), and
2. Establish whether the ceiling is designed to have a resistance to the incipient spread of fire to the roof space for a period of not less than 60 minutes.
If it is found that the ceiling carries this fire rating, then installation is still possible, but it gets trickier… and more expensive. Think of the ceiling as a barrier. Each time a hole is punched through the barrier (by pipe, light, conduit, access hole), and the barrier is no longer effective. Each hole would need to be ‘protected’ with an appropriate passive fire protection element (fire seals, fire dampers and additional lightweight construction).
A ducted air conditioning system penetrating a fire rated ceiling could cost upward of an additional $10,000. A simple exhaust fan could cost an additional $1200. Fire-rated downlights or downlight covers can add 50% to the purchase costs and impact on the positioning of the lights.
It is our recommendation that you engage a Passive Fire Specialist at the time you are obtaining quotes for your new installation. Why? Well, tradies working in this space usually work in houses and have never heard of fire-rated-ceilings. They go about their business of installing the system – blissfully unaware of the damage they are doing to this critical piece of building infrastructure.
Historical construction codes (such as Ordinance 70 – 1973) right through to the current release of the BCA allow for various means of construction of ceilings and roof spaces under Specification C1.1. You need to know your stuff! It is not as simple as relying on the advice of the tradies you have chosen to undertake the installation – you should always engage a passive fire specialist.
We’ve estimated that about 80% of installations we’ve come across are not done in a compliant manner. The figure is significantly higher when the buildings fire safety schedule for annual endorsement does not contain items such as fire seals, fire dampers and lightweight construction or when a building is not required to submit an Annual Fire Safety Statement.
Owners of strata buildings should ensure procedures are in place to a) identify all fire rated ceilings, and b) ensure the system is not compromised through by penetrations.
Only maintained, and operating fire safety systems save lives! A fire rated ceiling full of penetrations is safety hazard. Defective fire systems can affect insurance premiums & payouts and may lead to litigation for the building owners.
Owners of strata buildings should:
- Identify all fire rated ceilings in their building.
- Prevent new installations from occurring in fire rated ceiling without sign-off from a passive fire specialist.
- Determine the current state of the fire rated ceiling. Is it currently compliant? Or are there historical defects?
- Rectify historical defects to restore the fire rated ceiling to compliance.
- Ensure routine assessment of the ceiling is being undertaken by an accredited individaul.
I don’t think we’ve had contractors come through before who were so clean and tidy, helpful and responsive with ideas about how to better maintain the heritage and be compliant and generally respectful of the property.
He was so thoughtful, he stopped the really noisy part of the repair so I could answer calls. I went out at lunch, and he was on his hands and knees washing the floor in the entry because he’d brought in some debris from the street.
