Council fire inspections of old units

[handyandy]

Hi All

I have just been notified of a council fire inspection to be carried out on a residential blocks of units.

Upon further investigation they are inspecting all units in this area, specifying fitting of mains smoke detectors in all units and emergency lighting in all staircases. In addition to these two items they are inspecting the doors and frames to ensure that they are up to the current fire rating.

Now in principal I don't have a problem with the first two items, namely the smoke detectors and lighting but we are talking about buildings that are 30 years old and were built to the specific fire standard of that time.

To now come along and force compliance to a whole new code is just over the top. Remembering that to retro fit larger door jams and longer fire rated doors will be extremely expensive. You will not get a lot of change out of $2k per door. The need for the replacement could be as simple as a tenant (who is long gone) having fitted a lock and somehow upset the fire rating of the door.

I discussed this issue with 2 strata managers and they have been advised of the same situation but only after the council sent letters to each individual unit owner.

So all up this is going to be a very expensive excercise for all unit holders with a minimum spend of $200 with more costs in the way of strata contribution for the emergency lighting and say another $100 for the compliance certificate, or much, much more if there is a problem with the fire door/ frame.

I keep people posted re further developments.

Cheers

[Kristine..]

Hi HandyAndy

Well, I'm with the Council on this one.

Fire safety is of paramount importance, particularly in multi-tenement buildings and developments.

It is buildings which are getting a bit old and where everybody reckons they have no money to spend and will out vote the strata managers which would pose the greatest risk.

I say support the council initiative and get the building up to scratch before the insurance company starts imposing a higher premium or, worse still, refuses to offer insurance cover. Never mind someone burnt to a crisp behind their illegally locked door.

Owning or living in a block of flats doesn't mean no maintenance. I received a fencing notice last week from one of my neighbours (house), the quote was for more than $1,000. The fence is probably 35 years old and is literally lying in the garden for about one third of it's length.

All properties require maintenance and, on occasion, upgrading. Usually the bills come at the least convenient time, but with regards the fire notices, as a previous body corporate manager I would have welcomed compliance notices on some of the places I managed simply because it was impossible to reach consensus amongst the owners when it came to spending any money at all.

Cheers

Kristine

[handyandy]

Hi Kristine

I don't disagree in principal but when they start rewriting the building code under which the building was built and approved, that in my books, is going to far.

The main area that I don't agree with is the possibility of having to extend the door jam. Under the old building code the coverage was 1.5cm the new code is somewhere in the vecinity of 2.5cm. This is far more than a maintenance issue as there is nothing wrong with the frames as they are except somebody somewhere has decided that the greater coverage is better.

The second issue I have is the diffficulty of retrofitting any changes to occupied units where you introduce a whole raft of tenants rights issue and as we saw recently access to property in abcense of the tenant etc. So all up a simple job if the unit was empty becomes an extended job with many wasted hours.

I'll get off my soap box now

Cheers

Andreas

[kissfan]

Hi Handyandy.

Which state are the units located in, better still, what area/suburb?

Regards
Marty