Rzeczoznawca, ochrona przeciwpożarowa

The title question of this article may seem trivial and the material itself unnecessary, because, after all, everything is clear. Unfortunately, practice shows that it is completely different. Especially when it comes to people somewhat less involved on a daily basis in facility design, such as building owners, officials supervising public facilities, etc. Quite often, these people draw not entirely correct conclusions from studies related to agreeing on alternative and substitute solutions, i.e., popular "deviations" regarding fire protection requirements, especially in the case of existing facilities. Unfortunately, it quite often happens that the person responsible for implementing solutions resulting from the fire protection expertise and the decisions of the relevant provincial commander of the State Fire Service reads only the part of the study listing substitute or alternative solutions. That is, in fact, only the list of above-standard measures intended to compensate for irregularities occurring in the facility. The remaining content of the expertise or decision remains outside the interest of these people, which sometimes causes significant problems, most often at too late a stage of the investment, e.g., during acceptances by the control and reconnaissance services of the State Fire Service.

This material aims to draw attention to what information from documents, such as an expertise or a decision, should be taken into account in the investment process in order to avoid problems.

In accordance with the guidelines of the National Headquarters of the State Fire Service, fire safety expertises used for further agreement on alternative and substitute solutions, in short, contain the following key parts in the form of:

* a description of the fire protection conditions of the facility – and here indications are often already included regarding irregularities occurring in the facility and necessary actions to eliminate irregularities that will not be subject to a request for "deviation", as well as work necessary to adapt the facility to the intended use may be indicated here, elements requiring such a "deviation" are also often indicated in this place, we will also most often find guidelines here for equipping the facility with fire protection equipment taking into account both the intended use of the facility and constituting alternative and substitute solutions;* a list of irregularities occurring in the facility divided into a list of all irregularities occurring in the original state, a list of irregularities that will be eliminated as a result of the intended work, and a list of irregularities that will occur in the facility after completing the work improving safety resulting both from the existing state and from the intended use (a change of use relative to the previous state may often occur), wherein sometimes in the case of a complete change of both the form of the building and its use, the first two lists are omitted if the conditions, e.g., before redevelopment and change of use, cannot be compared at all with the designed target state;* a list of alternative and substitute solutions – therefore exclusively a list of provided conditions going beyond solutions resulting directly from regulations;* an analysis of the impact of substitute and alternative solutions on the level of fire safety.

Similarly, in the decision of the provincial commander of the State Fire Service granting consent to the use of alternative and substitute solutions, we can distinguish the "most interesting" parts:

* the first, which lists the indications of the expertise regarding alternative and substitute solutions – that is, the same as above in the second-to-last item listed for the expertise;* the second part, where requirements resulting from specific regulations are listed to the extent that consent is granted to meet them in a manner other than specified in regulations, i.e., using the alternative and substitute solutions specified above – this should be the same list as the list of irregularities occurring in the facility after completing its adaptation to fire protection requirements contained in the expertise – provided, of course, that the provincial commander favors the entire application for "deviation";* an additional part, sometimes occurring, specifying additional conditions formulated by the provincial commander of the State Fire Service that must be implemented apart from the listed substitute and alternative solutions if the commander's consent is granted "under condition";* the justification, which currently takes the most limited form possible, but nevertheless contains provisions worth remembering, as discussed further in these considerations.

As I mentioned earlier, unfortunately, due to a misunderstanding of the above documents, sometimes the building owner or another responsible person commissions work exclusively within the scope of solutions listed as alternative and substitute in the expertise, without taking into account the remaining parts of the subject documents at all, and remains convinced that after their implementation all necessary requirements have been met, which is often completely contrary to the actual state of affairs. Quite often, the owner of the facility assumes that no designs are needed because, after all, there is an expertise. And this state of affairs may occur increasingly often after the recent changes to the Building Law, where a significantly larger scope of construction work does not require a building permit or even notification.

And how should it be? The scope of necessary work stems from the entire expertise. To begin with, one should take into account all elements described in the content of the analysis of the building's fire protection conditions, which describes which elements currently do not meet regulatory requirements or, left in their current state, would not meet such requirements under the new intended use of the facility, and which are to be "rectified" in a manner directly resulting from regulations. Sometimes this scope is additionally summarized within the list of irregularities that will be eliminated. However, I recommend a careful reading of both parts of the expertise, because in a given specific situation, especially with an ensuing change of use or redevelopment of the facility, etc., investments changing conditions in the facility, there may be additional elements to implement mentioned in other parts of the expertise description outside those listed in the list of irregularities to be eliminated.

Furthermore, one must "read out" substitute and alternative solutions that do not stem directly from the necessity to adapt the building to a state resulting directly from the provisions of regulations, but constitute above-standard solutions.

Only the sum of these above-standard undertakings and the scope resulting from the necessary direct application of regulations, along with any possible additional conditions indicated by the provincial commander as "granting consent under condition", gives a complete set of works or functional and procedural solutions ensuring the required level of safety in the facility.

One should also bear in mind the very important fact that the decision of the provincial commander expresses consent to non-compliance with the requirements of regulations in a manner directly resulting from them solely and exclusively within the scope of irregularities listed in such a decision. It is not, as some believe, that if an application for "deviations" is approved by the provincial commander of the State Fire Service, it means that all irregularities, including those not mentioned later in the decision, are "settled". Most often in decisions, in their final part, we can currently find standard, but quite significant sentences that often no one reads, such as:

* "this decision does not replace building designs and executive designs required by law, agreed upon with a fire protection expert, nor the relevant permits" – meaning a direct explanation that the decision does not constitute approval of design documentation; indirectly, it should also be read that the expertise is not design documentation, and for the required scope of construction works or for the installation of fire protection equipment, appropriate designs agreed upon with a fire protection expert are necessary (where such agreement is required);* "the decision grants consent to meet fire safety requirements in a manner other than specified in generally applicable regulations only for the cases listed in the decision; other fire safety requirements not listed in the subject decision must be performed in accordance with applicable regulations" – meaning all other regulatory requirements not listed in the decision must be implemented as regulations prescribe; the provincial commander refers only to the requested scope of irregularities, and decisions do not approve irregularities that are not literally listed but may actually occur in the facility;* "the decision must be considered together with the 'Technical Expertise of the Building Fire Protection State'" – meaning we cannot apply the decision itself in isolation from the expertise and the comprehensive state of fire protection of the facility described therein.

So in summary, the expertise must be read in its entirety and not just selected parts that only seemingly appear to be more important. And if the basis for preparing the expertise includes additional documents, such as reports from CFD analyses of evacuation conditions or computer evacuation analyses, etc., these documents must additionally be taken into account together with the expertise. In order to be fully aware of which requirements consent was granted by the provincial commander of the State Fire Service to meet in a manner other than specified in regulations, one must read the decision carefully. At the same time, one should also carefully trace the planned alternative and substitute solutions, as well as any possible additional conditions set by the provincial commander that did not result from the expertise itself or the application for "deviations".

Otherwise, at a certain, usually too late moment, we may face a difficult situation where, instead of adapting the facility to fire protection requirements, we have actually performed only a certain scope of required undertakings, sometimes constituting a small fraction of what was actually to be carried out. And one must be fully aware that eliminating the irregularities listed in the expertise or decision takes place only after ensuring all works and organizational solutions required by the expertise and decision. If the application for "deviations" is somewhat a consequence of obligations imposed by a decision of the municipal or district commander of the State Fire Service, in the case of their implementation by way of substitute and alternative solutions, we can state that these obligations are fulfilled only after completely meeting the requirements of the expertise and decision.

And one more thing worth remembering. The expertise and the consent of the provincial commander of the State Fire Service are not documents that can be forgotten after implementing the recommendations contained therein. In the further operation of the facility, attention must be paid to whether we are changing the actual state of its use and the fire safety conditions existing therein to ones other than described in these documents, because in such a situation they lose their validity and an effort would have to be made again to obtain consent to meet fire protection requirements in a manner other than specified in regulations.

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Deviations - expert opinion, decision - how to read?

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