With the spiralling costs of many construction materials and products, Hannah Mansell, group technical director for Masonite companies in the UK, cautions against the prospect of lowering specifications to mitigate price rises.
As part of the need for increased transparency in the specification of building safety components, it is more important than ever to guard against the prospect of specifications being negatively changed during the design and construction phases, or when a building is refurbished.
This is sometimes referred to as value engineering, although true value engineering should not just be cover for cost-cutting. It should be a creative process during which the project team can improve the overall value of a project by considering the function and performance of each construction element against its cost.
This process should look at optimising every element of a project through an analysis of all benefits and downsides, including total cost of ownership over the lifetime of a building. This includes considering alternative design solutions, the availability and use of materials, construction methods, transport, process and logistics, plant and machinery, and site issues.
So, what are the issues that design and construction teams are dealing with here? Construction materials cost increases reached a 40-year high last year, based on the annual growth of the BCIS Materials Cost Index. Increased global demand in the construction sector as the effects of the pandemic wane, alongside materials shortages and labour cost rises have all contributed to this situation. General building costs are forecast to rise by almost 10% in 2022, while the cost of materials is forecast to rise by almost 18%.
Guarding against cost-cutting
By specifying construction products that have been independently third-party certificated, architects can be assured that they have done their best to ensure that changes to inferior specifications won’t happen further down the line. At Door-Stop International, part of the Masonite companies in the UK, we’re committed to independent third-party certification of our products and are in a strong position to help architects avoid the pitfalls of specification trimming.
By specifying a particular fire doorset that has been third-party certificated, architects can be assured that the product in question is fit-for-purpose and has been manufactured precisely to the original product specification.
When a third-party certificated product is manufactured it is labelled with a unique number, providing full traceability of the manufacturer and any certification relating to its specification and production records. This enables on-site checks to be made against the door’s original standards and provides information on replacement parts that are compatible with the original specification and test requirements, so that compliance with the original specification is maintained.
Certification includes precise details of the products covered (including maximum permitted dimensions). It also provides information on door leaf configurations, doorframes, thresholds, door-to-frame gaps, supporting construction, installation instructions, glazed apertures, intumescent protection, locks and latches, self-closing devices, and ancillary items.
Competent installation
Of course, certification of fire doors does not stop with the product itself. Equally important is to ensure that the doors are installed strictly in accordance with the certificate, data sheet and installation instructions by trained, competent installers. One way to be assured of using a competent installer is to make sure they are third-party certificated under a recognised scheme. If fire doors are not properly installed, their fire-resistant capabilities can be seriously degraded. Certification schemes for installers are designed to provide reassurance that fire doors have been correctly installed and should perform as intended.
Door-Stop International, use a digital ‘Critical to Safety’ framework that records the checks carried out during the manufacturing process. Products are shipped with copies of the full certificate, data sheet and installation instructions, which list the original primary test evidence reports. This is a vital link in helping stakeholders manage, inspect and maintain the product throughout its lifetime.
‘Golden thread’
By using third-party certificated products such as fire doorsets, architects can also be assured that they are contributing to the ‘golden thread’ of building safety information, first introduced by Dame Judith Hackitt in her report Building a Safer Future. In essence, critical fire and other building safety information should be collected at each phase of the building’s development and passed on to the managers of a building for its occupation. As people who commission building work and participate in the design of buildings, architects become Golden Thread dutyholders under secondary legislation to be made using powers within the Building Safety Act.
As can be seen, attempting to trim the specification of fire doorsets is never a good idea, even under cost pressures. By specifying independent third party certificated products, architects can be assured that they have discharged their professional duties, as well as reducing the chances of cost-cutting specification changes further down the line.