Overview
Primary and secondary schools, colleges, universities, TAFEs, childcare and early learning centres, and the student accommodation attached to them. The passive fire work is ordinary. The access is not.
We scope it in term time, mobilise for the break, and work to finish and certify inside it. The aim is the buildings back on day one of term with the paperwork already done, and where a scope will not fit the window we say so before it starts rather than halfway through.
The break is the window
A two-week break is the whole window on most terms, and the long summer one is where the bigger scopes go. Either way we scope in term time and mobilise for day one — crews resourced to the scope, materials on site before the break starts, and the work split into what can be done with students in the building and what cannot.
If something unexpected turns up in week three, you hear about it straight away. It is either closed out before the break ends or made safe and scheduled for the next one, and we tell you which rather than letting you find out on the first morning of term.
We work out what the old blocks actually are
Most schools are not one building. They are a 1960s block, a 1980s extension, a demountable that became permanent and a new wing built last year, all joined together, and the separation between those parts is where the questions are. We survey the campus as one asset and hand back a single register instead of a folder per building.
Buildings of that age also raise the material question. Where a door or a sprayed coating may contain asbestos we resolve it before anything is disturbed — and we hold Class A and Class B removal licences, so it does not become a second contractor and a second programme.
What you get from us
- Fire and smoke doors to corridors, stairs, plant rooms and halls, including inspection and repair.
- Service penetrations from IT, power and plumbing upgrades run through rated walls between buildings.
- Fire-rated construction where a refurbishment changes the compartment.
- Baseline surveys across a campus, so the facilities team has one register instead of a folder per building.
- Defect rectification staged across successive term breaks against an agreed programme.
- Asbestos fire doors in older blocks, within the licensed FRS scope.
The conditions we plan for
- Children on site — Working With Children requirements, separation from students, and site rules that are not negotiable.
- Hard deadline — The building has to be usable on the first day of term. That is a real constraint, not a target.
- Multiple buildings, one client — A campus-wide register is worth more than a separate inspection for every building, and it prices better.
- Limited records — Common on sites that have been added to over decades. Establish the baseline first.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
- Can you do a whole campus in one break?
- Sometimes. It depends on the scope and how many crews the site can take at once. We would rather tell you what fits in the window than promise the lot and leave a building half done.
- Do your crews have Working With Children checks?
- Yes. Every FRS employee who works on a school, childcare or other child-related site holds a current Working With Children Check. We confirm cards against your site requirements before the crew is scheduled, and we can provide them with the pre-start paperwork.
- Can you work while school is in?
- Some scopes, in areas that can be separated properly. Others have to wait for the break. We will tell you which is which.
- We have a report from a building surveyor covering eight buildings. Where do we start?
- With the register. We sort it by building and by which problems are the same problem repeated, then spread the work across the breaks you have.
Related
Drawings, photos or a defect report in front of you?
Send what you already have. We will tell you what else is needed before the work can be reviewed, priced or booked for site inspection.