Architect fined over timber frame fire risk

Teesside Magistrates’ Court was told it would have been reasonable for the architects to have specified fire-resistant timber or considered the sequence of construction so that the timber frame of each floor was clad before the next was constructed.

But Mario Minchella Ltd had not given contractors relevant information about the flammability of the timber frame used in the construction of the new building at Hemlington in Middlesbrough, heard.

A routine site inspection by the Health and Safety Executive found the separation distance between the building under construction and the occupied care home was insufficient.

Had the timber frame caught fire there was a serious risk the radiant heat would cause the fire to spread to the care home, the HSE said.

There was nothing in the architects’ design specification to alert construction workers to the risk and the need to take action.

The company was fined £1,500 after admitting two breaches of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 and ordered to pay £816 costs.

“Timber frames will burn faster and more completely when the panels are incomplete and not yet protected by the usual internal fire-resistant plasterboard and external cladding,” said HSE inspector Andrea Robbins.

Structural Timber Association (STA) chief executive Andrew Carpenter said the HSE was putting more onus on the role of the designer and prior to this case the STA had offered to deliver fire safety workshops to RIBA.