Smoke control requirements in educational buildings: what you need to know

Ensuring effective smoke control is essential in education facilities to allow time for buildings to be evacuated in the event of a fire, and safeguard potentially vulnerable students and staff. In this article, we explore some of the key regulations and design considerations when developing smoke control systems for these buildings, and how Colt can support on your project.

Why specialist smoke control design matters for education estates

It’s well known that during a fire event, smoke typically presents the greatest risk to life for occupants, partly due to the fact that smoke and hot gasses will generally spread faster than flames. This means that without effective smoke control, it can present a serious risk to the health of occupants many minutes before flames may reach them.

These risks are potentially greater in education facilities for a number of reasons:

• Younger children naturally tend to breathe more rapidly than adults and will, when in distress, be more prone to panicking. This can cause them to be more erratic in their decision making and take longer to evacuate.
• The occupants at schools may have different rates of mobility due to age or any physical impairment, again potentially increasing the amount of time it may take an occupant to escape.
• Government data shows that a significant proportion of fires in education estates are started deliberately. This means there may be a greater risk of fire in schools than other building types.

Therefore, any safety system that keeps evacuation routes clear of smoke for longer is going to be beneficial in an emergency. Well-designed and installed smoke control systems can help to protect these escape routes, evacuating smoke out of the building and aiding both visibility and air quality in these areas.

In addition to supporting evacuation, these systems can also aid firefighters in entering and navigating the building. Finally, they can help to limit the damage caused by the fire and the cost and time required for repairs. This should be a key consideration during the specification of these systems, with figures from the UK Insurance firm, Zurich Municipal showing that between 2020 and 2023 there were 125 fires in schools causing an estimated £27 million in damage. By ensuring smoke control systems are properly designed, it may be possible to limit costs in the event of a fire.

What smoke control guidance is available for education projects?

Alongside Part B of the Building Regulations and the accompanying Approved Document, specific best practice guidance for managing smoke risk in education projects in England is contained within Building Bulletin 100 from the Department of Education.

This guide covers a wide range of education facilities including nurseries, primary and secondary schools, academies, and colleges. It brings together advice from a range of sources including voluntary standards and from insurers.

In relation to smoke control systems, BB100 highlights that smoke ventilation systems can “extend the time for the presence of the smoke to cause lifethreatening conditions as the space becomes smoke logged.” It highlights a number of areas in a building where smoke control systems may be required under the Building Regulations, or where they can be used to support compartmentation along with references to relevant technical guidance documents.

Whilst offering a useful starting point, BB100 is now over a decade old. A government consultation on updating the guide was completed in 2021, however, to date, there has been no sign of the guidance document being updated. As a result, a growing number of project teams are looking at where it may be appropriate to go beyond these requirements to align with the latest standards. Colt can help to guide you on current best practices, and ensure your system meets these.

How Colt can support your education project

Colt has worked on a wide range of education facilities, both in designing and installing smoke control systems, and providing long-term service and maintenance. We can help support project teams, highlighting areas where smoke control provision may be necessary or especially beneficial.

These include:

1. Buildings where there is a firefighting shaft that needs protecting (usually in taller buildings).
2. An atrium has been incorporated into the facilities that might compromise a normally compliant fire strategy.
3. There is a residential requirement within the estate.
4. There is a relaxation of compartmentation to allow a more open plan design and fire curtains need to be deployed.

Our experienced design team can work with project teams to understand your building and requirements and develop a solution that works for you. We can utilise in-house Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and design tools to simulate airflows and heat transfer within the building and develop a design which provides effective smoke control. Our wide range of solutions include automatic opening vents, smoke and fire curtains and smoke and heat exhaust ventilation systems. These can help to contain smoke, supporting safe evacuation of education buildings and limit the scale of damage in the event of a fire.

In addition to developing the design, Colt can support you at every stage in the project including installation, handover and maintenance. Our UK-wide network of trained service engineers can also support during the handover of systems, ensuring facilities managers are fully briefed on correct system operation and developing a proactive service and maintenance schedule as part of a maintenance package from the outset. This ensures that systems continue to perform correctly over their lifetime, providing a safe environment for students whilst ensuring that estates managers are meeting key legal obligations.