Capability
A seal is not a product. It is a tested combination.
Substrate, service and material, tested together. Change any one of the three and the test evidence may no longer describe what has been installed.
What this part of the line is doing.
Fire stopping is the part of the compartment line that is closed up fastest and is hardest to inspect afterwards. Once a ceiling goes back or a riser is boarded, the only thing left is the record.
It is also where certificates most often mean less than they appear to. A product certificate covers a tested configuration, not every configuration the product can physically be pushed into.
The failures are ordinary, and they repeat.
Set out plainly, because a client who knows what to look for is a better client to work for.
A correct product installed in a configuration no test covers.
Mixed services through a single opening, where no test addresses that bundle.
A neat finish that proves nothing once the ceiling goes back, and a photograph nobody can tie to a location.
What we do differently.
The tested system is settled per penetration before work starts, for that substrate and that service. Where the field of application does not reach the configuration it is resolved beforehand, and there is an order to it: a different tested system, then an extended application report where the standard allows the evidence to be stretched by rule, then a technical assessment resting on primary test data from an accredited laboratory rather than on another assessment. The reasoning is recorded against the asset, and we would rather an assessment came from somebody independent of the product than from its manufacturer.
This is the failure that survives longest undetected, because every individual element in it has paperwork and the fault is in the relationship between them. Nothing in a conventional handover pack is structured to show a relationship. We would rather be the ones who ask.
What you are left holding.
Produced as part of the work and priced into the rate, not invoiced as a separate deliverable.
The system reference per penetration, with product data, substrate and service, captured at the point of completion, because it cannot be recovered once the opening is closed.
After practical completion.
Services get added. Where we hold an inspection instruction, penetrations are re-checked after other trades have worked in the void, and new penetrations are added to the register rather than discovered at the next survey.
Tell us about the building.
New build, refurbishment, remediation, planned maintenance, inspection, or the information a building has to be able to produce.
Or speak to one of us directly.
nick@compartis.co.uk
sam@compartis.co.uk