Old buildings are at their most vulnerable when undergoing repairs

Lessons to be learnt from the Notre Dame fire

Last year in the UK some 300 his­toric build­ings were dam­aged by fires, with many occur­ring whilst under­go­ing ren­o­va­tions or repairs. There is an online nation­al data­base of fires ​in her­itage buildings that records all report­ed fires, and so far in 2019 they have 152 fires noted.

Archa­ic build­ings are par­tic­u­lar­ly sus­cep­ti­ble to the fast spread­ing of fire due to dry old wood, voids and cav­i­ties in walls, floors and ceil­ings, effec­tive­ly pro­vid­ing ​‘run­ways’ for the flames. Wind­sor Castle’s 1992 fire, for exam­ple, was sparked by a workman’s spot­light acci­den­tal­ly set­ting a cur­tain alight in Queen Victoria’s Pri­vate Chapel.

Build­ings under­go­ing refur­bish­ment are vul­ner­a­ble as they’re like­ly to have exposed wires and tim­ber, and poten­tial­ly hot works occur­ring as part of the ren­o­va­tion. All con­struc­tion sites are high-risk safe­ty areas in any case, as all it takes is a spark from a sander, an abra­sive chop-saw, a blow torch or ash from a cig­a­rette, to ignite com­mon and flam­ma­ble con­struc­tion mate­ri­als like wood, sol­vents, pack­ag­ing and fuel. Fire swept through the top floor of the Paris Ritz Hotel as it was under­go­ing refur­bish­ment a cou­ple of years back, with 150 build­ing work­ers evac­u­at­ed from the site, and more recent­ly, a huge fire destroyed a sev­en storey apart­ment build­ing under con­struc­tion in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Continue reading Old buildings are at their most vulnerable when undergoing repairs at SPECIFIER REVIEW.

source https://specifierreview.com/2019/04/24/notre-dame-fire/