Develop prescriptive designs for fire resisting ducts and dampers

Design & specify | DS004

This activity is about creating product specifications for fire resisting ducts and dampers in response to descriptive designs. This includes identification of products and product manufacturer, and interpretation of DIAP / certificated performance. This may be carried out during RIBA stage 4 (Technical Design) on new build projects or during repair, maintenance and improvement activities.

Culture & behaviour

Core abilities

Culture & behaviour
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Effective working behaviours

You must:

  • Work within limits of defined capability and know when to seek advice from others
  • Manage own time effectively
  • Work effectively individually and as part of a team
  • Communicate effectively
  • Undertake defined personal development activities to maintain currency of competence
Culture & behaviour
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Design & specification behaviours

You must:

  • Challenge unsafe behaviours and activities, and report where necessary
  • Work in accordance with quality requirements and challenge where they are not being met
  • Act ethically to ensure safe outcomes
  • Follow organisational processes for highlighting and resolving inaccurate or incomplete product information
    • The individual knows what the processes are, why they are important and follows the processes in place
Currency of competence
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Experience developing prescriptive designs for fire resisting ducts and dampers

You must have:

  • 1 prescriptive design of fire resisting ducts and dampers meeting a descriptive design, per year
Core abilities
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Core passive fire knowledge

You must:

  • Understand the importance of passive fire protection in safeguarding buildings and people
    • To include: compartmentation; how PFP impedes fire to protect structures and people.
  • Know suitable vocabulary to discuss passive fire protection products

To provide evidence, you may complete:

  • IFE Level 2 Certificate in Passive Fire Protection
  • IFE Level 2 Award in Passive Fire Protection
    • Any one or more of the awards currently on offer
  • IFE Level 3 Certificate in Passive Fire Protection
Core abilities
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Selecting construction products

You must:

  • Understand how legislation and official guidance relates to the design of passive fire protection, and the consequences of non-compliance
  • Understand how digital engineering can assist with the design process, and its limitations
  • Understand that buildings work as systems and know the importance of this for passive fire design
  • Understand your responsibility to follow organisational rules about construction products
  • Be aware of the Code for Construction Product Information (CCPI) and how it is utilised
  • Understand how conformity marking can be used to support passive fire design
    • To include: Use of the Declaration of Performance to compare products for the same scope of application; Knowing that not all products can be conformity marked
  • Understand how third party certification can support passive fire design
  • Understand how test reports can support product specification
  • Know the impact of getting information wrong
Core abilities
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Impact of product variation in design and specification

You must:

  • Understand the potential impact of product variation on construction system conformance or compliance
  • Understand when product variation may be required
    • Where specified product is not available or where conditions at site don't meet design intent
Specific abilities
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Developing prescriptive designs for fire resisting ducts and dampers

You must:

  • Know how to interpret descriptive design information related to fire resisting ducts and dampers

You must be able to:

  • Identify the requirements for fire resisting ducts and dampers based on the descriptive design provided
  • Review direct field of application and certified product performance to determine and specify suitable products for the required fire resisting ducts and dampers, or seek alternative performance validations
  • Select alternative products for use in line with the descriptive design where proposed products for fire resisting ducts and dampers are deemed unsuitable
Specific abilities
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Understanding fire resistant ducts and dampers

You must:

  • Know types of damper and where to find information on their mechanism of operation and use
    • Including: differences between fire resisting dampers and smoke control dampers, including fire resisting dampers with smoke leakage performance
  • Know types of fire resisting ductwork and methods used to maintain compartmentation where passing through compartment walls
  • Know where to find information on firestopping of fire resisting ductwork and dampers and how to interpret that information
    • As laid out in the ASFP blue and grey books
Specific abilities
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Finding and interpreting information on fire resistant ducts and dampers

You must:

  • Know where to find information on product warranties
  • Know where to find detailed information on passive fire protection products, relating to fire resisting ducts and dampers
  • Know how to interpret detailed information on passive fire protection products used for fire resisting ducts and dampers
    • To include: Characteristics, quality, uses, limitations; Different protection methods as detailed in both grey and blue books; Damper types as laid out in the ASFP grey book
Specific abilities
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Limits of responsibility for prescriptive design

You must:

  • Understand that within prescriptive design you may propose construction products for a validated scope of application
Specific abilities
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Handling product variation

You must:

  • Know how to escalate product variation queries

You must be able to:

  • Identify where product variation may be required
  • Escalate product variation queries outside of direct scope of application or outside terms of contract
  • Propose suitable alternatives where product variation is required and a suitable alternative can be found under direct scope of application and within terms of the contract
Specific abilities
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Communicating prescriptive design information

You must:

  • Know methods of communicating of prescriptive design information

You must be able to:

  • Document the prescriptive design
  • Communicate prescriptive design requirements to relevant stakeholders
    • To include: installation contractor / golden thread; descriptive designer

Currency of competence

Specific abilities

Culture & behaviour

Core abilities

Currency of competence

Specific abilities

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