The building or project condition
A three-level commercial office building. Engaged by the builder for one fit-out, then by the building owner for the rest of it.
What FRS delivered
- Fire doors and service penetration fire stopping for a tenancy fit-out
- Every penetration recorded against its location, with the evidence behind each system
- Then, on the owner's instruction, every service penetration in the building, for every trade — worked through an occupied building floor by floor
- One register covering the building rather than a file per tenancy and per trade
What made it difficult
- A live, occupied building for the second stage, with tenants in it and working
- Access, noise and reinstatement agreed with building management rather than assumed
- Every trade penetrates on its own schedule, which means returning to the same walls as services go in
- Existing construction, where what is already through an opening changes what can be added to it
- After-hours and weekend work where tenancies could not be disturbed, with access arranged through building management each time
- Lift and loading bookings shared with everyone else working the building
- Ceilings opened and closed the same shift, so tenants returned to a room that looked untouched
- Occupied floors either side of the work, which sets what can be cut, when, and how loudly
What was recorded at close-out
- Location-by-location penetration record with before and after photographs
- Certificate of Compliance
A three-level office building on Murray Street, and it started as one tenancy in it. A fit-out — the fire doors and the services through the rated walls — with the record built as the work went in rather than assembled at the end.
The builder showed the owner what had been done. The owner then engaged FRS directly for the rest of the building — every service penetration, for every trade, throughout.
That is the whole argument for doing it properly the first time. A fit-out package is a small job. What it produced here was a record the building owner could look at and understand, which is not what most owners are handed, and it was worth the entire building.
The second stage ran through a live building. Tenants were in it and working, so the job moved floor by floor to access, noise and reinstatement agreed with building management — the building did not stop to let us at it.
It now has one penetration register instead of a folder per tenancy and a gap wherever a trade sealed behind itself and told nobody.
