Painting Contractors Have a Role in Fighting Fire

Painting Contractors, such as Bagnalls can help with fire protection during refurbishment projects, in line with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order, 2005.

Responding to the need for improved levels of fire protection in England and Wales, the Government implemented the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. The Order places more emphasis on fire prevention rather than establishing measures to fight fire once it has broken out. The new requirements mean that those responsible for any premises ‘where people gather’ or go to work, are held accountable for managing any fire risk within the property.

The latest fire statistics report published by Communities and Local Government states that in 2006 32,900 fires were recorded in the UK in buildings other than dwellings. Of these fires, 12,800 (39%) were started deliberately, with schools and construction industry premises being key targets. During the fires recorded, 37 people died and 1500 injuries were sustained.

An ideal solution
One way of improving fire safety in any building is to protect interior wall and ceiling surfaces with a specialist flame retardant paint system, such as Crown Trade Timonox. Many communal areas have years of paint build up due to cyclical maintenance programmes and over painting in high graffiti areas. This repeated painting often means that the original Class 0 fire rating of a surface (as defined in Section B2 of Approved Document B of the UK Building Regulations) will be reduced to Class 2 or worse. However, painted surfaces can be brought back into the highest category of fire protection, Class 0, without removing the existing paint, saving money and time, using a flame retardant system such as Crown’s Timonox.

An outbreak of fire can put anyone in a vulnerable position and it is crucial to ensure adequate protection to allow time to escape. The correct application of flame retardant paints is one way of slowing the spread of flame, creating crucial extra time for people to escape to safety, therefore a professional painting contractor such as Bagnalls should be used.

Painting Contractor Bagnalls Works on UK’s BSF Programme

Bagnalls the UK painting contractor has been using a range of high performance Crown Trade decorative coatings in bright, contemporary colourways to deliver attractive, and stimulating learning environments at six new flagship schools developed for Education Leeds.

The BSF (Building Schools for Future) programme of works is a new, strategic approach to capital investment in school buildings that will create the environment for the Government's agenda of educational transformation. Billions of pounds of investment into 180 school buildings will be taking place. This investment will see the entire secondary school building stock upgraded and refurbished.

Bagnalls role as a painting contractor is to provide an environment in which students want to learn and develop. The colour schemes devised by leading architects, Seymour Harris Architects of Leeds, have more in common with design-led corporate premises than with traditional educational establishments. Mike Varlow, Architect, advises:

“We were determined to break with the past and make a fundamental step change in the way we designed these new school buildings. Our objective was to create impressive and truly inspirational learning environments that would give pupils and staff alike a real sense of self worth and instil pride in their surroundings.“

Deep aubergine was used in the main entrance of John Smeaton Community College, giving the entrance a distinctive and very contemporary feel. In addition, different wall colours have been used throughout the projects to delineate various areas of the schools to help pupils, staff and visitors to navigate their way around. This ‘directional’ use of colour has been used at Ralph Thoresby, an ‘inclusive’ school with specialised resources and facilities to cater for physically disabled and visually impaired learners. The feature walls in the ‘main street’ running through the building are painted in bright blue, with a white ‘tactile stripe’ at waist level providing a secondary guiding feature and strong yellow entrance areas denote primary circulation routes feeding off the main street and leading to classrooms.

Bagnalls chose to use Crown Trade finishes at all the schools, from the external entrance areas where Stronghold Smooth masonry paint was applied, all the way through the interiors, where Crown Trade Vinyl Matt, Acrylic Eggshell and Clean Extreme Scrubbable Matt were the predominant coatings used. It is essential that the paint manufacturer and painting contractor work together as supply chain partners to achieve the project objectives.