Paparua By-laws On Fire Protection May Be Altered

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29764, 6 March 1962, Page 15

Paparua By-laws On Fire Protection May Be Altered

The Paparua County Council last evening invited its engineer (Mr A. Dyhrberg) to submit his recommendations concerning amendments to the section of the county by-laws dealing with fire protection in buildings. The invitation was made on toe recommendation of the council’s town-planning committee, which referred to a report Mr Dyhrberg had made to it on fire protection at the new Grocers United Stores store building at Hornby. “The provision of automatic systems for early detection and suppression of fires should be further considered with regard to the conditions that apply witbin toe county town areas,” Mr Dyhrberg said in his report to the townplanning committee. “It would seem to me that where a building of this size is isolated on its own site well away from any other buildings, the matter of fire cover is on for the. owners.” Mr Dyhrberg said toe Metropolitan Fire Board had drawn attention to the fact that as toe enclosed area in a single compartment of toe building was more than 28.000 sq. ft., an automatic sprinkler system should be installed.

When this bad been conveyed to Fletcher Holdings, toe firm had replied that the lessees of the building were opposed to the installation of a sprinkler system because of the possibility that insurance against water damage would be as heavy in the case of their goods as the premium for fire insurance. Mr Dyhrberg said the standard code required that where building compartments were in excess of 28,000 sq. ft. toe installation of sprinkler protection was mandatory. “The cost of the sprinkler system in this building is stated to be around £12,000,” he said, “and Fletchers have said that if it had been realised in the beginning that a sprinkler system would be required the project would not have been proceeded with.” Mr Dyhrberg said it seemed that the mandatory requirement of sprinkler protection was meant to apply in buildings in fully built-up areas where fire could readily spread to whole city blocks. “At the same time the Fire Board has recently been criticised for its failure to quell an outbreak of fire in the trotting dub grandstand at Addington, a building separated as it was on its own site.”