Fire Stopping Surveys for Higher-Risk Buildings

What is a higher-risk building?

The Building Safety Act 2022 introduced the higher-risk buildings regime for buildings at least 18 metres or seven storeys high that contain at least two residential units. These buildings are subject to additional duties for the people accountable for them.

What other legislation applies?

The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 place specific duties on Responsible Persons in multi-occupied residential buildings.

The Fire Safety Act 2021 made clear that The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (as amended) covers a building's structure, external walls and flat entrance doors. That brings the walls and floors separating flats from each other and from common parts firmly within the Order.

Different fire safety legislation applies in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and our surveys work to it.

Why do accurate fire stopping records matter in these buildings?

Residential buildings rely heavily on compartmentation. Each flat is normally designed as its own compartment, so that a fire in one flat is contained and residents elsewhere are protected. Fire stopping around services passing between flats, risers and common corridors is central to that.

Over the life of a building, services are added, replaced and rerouted. Each change can leave an unsealed penetration that is hidden behind a riser door or above a corridor ceiling. Without a located, photographed record, it is difficult to know what is there, what has changed and what has been fixed.

A clear survey record helps the people responsible understand the condition of the fire stopping, plan remedial works, and show what they found and what they did about it.

What do we survey in residential buildings?

• Service risers and the floor slabs within them
• Penetrations through walls between flats and common corridors
• Ceiling voids above common corridors
• Bin stores, plant rooms, meter cupboards and electrical intake rooms
• Roof spaces and cavity barriers where accessible
• Flat entrance doors, if a fire door survey is included

Access inside individual flats is arranged through you and residents. The survey is visual and non-intrusive; opening up construction happens only if separately agreed in writing beforehand.

What does the report give you?

Every observation is photographed, referenced to its location and described, with a recommended remedy. We report what we find and do not grade risk or set timescales; the Responsible Person decides next steps with their Fire Risk Assessor. The report is not a certificate.

If you want remedial works, see Fire Stopping Remedial Works.