Australia suffers some of the harshest conditions for fire in the world. And we have incredibly stringent and complicated fire-related building regulations to match.

Many experts suggest that the provi sions within the Building Code of Australia are overkill, and have in fact become a hindrance to innovative and sustainable design. Others point out that this is not the biggest problem; the chief trouble, we hear, is that Australia contin ues to get the simple things wrong in fire protection far too often.

The not so simple case of Fire- Resistance

Being our most obvious combustible material, timber provides a good starting point for considering the complexities fire resistant properties in buildings.

Andrew Dunn, the chief executive of the Timber Development Association, says that when fielding calls from architects and specifiers, “When someone rings up, the typical question you get is: ‘what are the fire properties of this timber?’.

“The problem is, irrespective of the material, be it timber or otherwise, the BCA, other than single family houses, first requires the performance is measured under one of four different categories.”

Be it timber, concrete, steel or plaster cement and so on, each product is desig nated performance characteristics within the areas of Structure, Compartment; Coverings; and Bushfire.

Coverings, for example have two prop erties, for floors it requires a Critical Radiant Flux (CRF) whilst the walls and ceiling require a group number.

In addition, each and every building component or system which is not a cov ering is required to pass minimum Early Fire Hazard properties i.e, the Spread of Flame and Smoke Developemnt Index, and this changes due to occupancy: for example, a hospital is more restrictive than industrial building.

The latest bushfire construction stan dard, AS 3959, prescribes minimum con struction requirements based on the determination of a Bushfire Attack Level (BAL). The range of six categories is based on modeling that includes not just a building’s construction type and radiant heat performance, but proximity to out buildings, slope of the land, vegetation type and shielding from the fire.

“So it’s a very complex area,” Dunn explains. “As a timber supplier we have data for lots of commercially available species. Each has to have all these properties.”

The website, woodsolutions.com.au, displays technical guides which hold the data and advice on building systems. Equally, companies such as CSR, Boral and James Hardie are the keepers of performance data for fire-rated floors and wall systems for their correspnding products.

While the deemed to satisfy provisions of the BCA can impose significant building costs, it has also been known to restrict design innovation.

“My personal opinion is that Australia’s building regulations are behind others countries, such as many European, and North American,” Dunn says. “It limits us, for example in the area of sustain able design. We can see that they can build 9-storey timber building in the UK, but the deemed-to-satisfy BCA does not allow it here.”

“Exceptional sustainable build ings, like the recently announced Grocon’s Delta Project (imagery above) would not pass BCA’s deemed-to-satisfy requirements”.

Instead, designers need to employ the services of fire engineers, which Dunn says is prohibited by cost in the majority developments.

Call in the Engineers

The conservative nature of the deemed-to-satisfy provisions of the BCA can impose significant restrictions when designing buildings. However, as it is a performance- based code, alternative solutions can be engineered to satisfy provisions of the BCA or Australian Standards.

Fire engineering also allows the designer some flexibility with respect to design options in existing buildings.

The performance format of the BCA also allows fire engineered solutions to new and existing build ings to be used as a means of show ing compliance and achieving a suit able level of Fire and Life safety, to satisfy the performance provisions of the BCA.

Hence, while deemed-to-satisfy provisions of the BCA generally only contain one method of satisfying the objectives for Fire and Life Safety, engineering can lay claim to encour aging innovation to meet the per formance provisions of the BCA.

Allan Harriman is the director of BCA Logic, building regulations and fire safety engineering consultants, based in NSW. They’ve worked on high-profile projects such as World Square and the Imax Sydney — known as the cinema with the world’s largest screen.

In addition to working with design ers when developing plans, an impor tant role is ensuring that inspections of fire-rated elements are carried out during construction; something which is routinely overlooked.

The firm also does a lot of home owners warranty defect claims. “They tend to occur about five years after they’ve been built and occupied,” says Harriman.

Harriman agrees that the BCA is one of the most stringent building codes in the world with regard to fire ratings.

“However, in Australia we are get ting the very simple things wrong,” he says. “This includes protection and penetrations, fire dampeners, PVC piping, fire sealing brick walls to the top of the slab. What it means is, because the simple things are not done correctly, our stringent fire codes are never actually realised.”

In fact, Harriman points out that fire defects exist in almost all buildings.

“Some may be quite bad and across the board, although in most cases there would just be a defect here, one there: similar in the way that you can find defects in most cars.”

Harriman adds that there is now broad industry support for the licens ing or regulation of installers involved in the fire safety products area.