Compartmentation and fire stopping that keeps fire and smoke where they started. Buildings are designed as a set of fire-resisting boxes, and every cable, pipe and duct that passes through a wall or floor punches a hole in one. We seal service penetrations, install cavity barriers, build fire-rated boxing and make good breaches so the structure performs the way it was designed to, with the work recorded as we go.
Walls and floors that are supposed to hold fire for 30 or 60 minutes checked above ceilings, in risers and in roof voids, where the breaches actually hide. Holes, poor previous work and missing construction put right so each compartment line is continuous again.
Cables, pipes, trunking and ductwork sealed where they pass through compartment walls and floors, using tested systems matched to the service and the substrate: intumescent sealants, batt and mastic, collars and wraps on plastic pipework that would otherwise melt and leave an open hole.
Barriers installed in the concealed spaces where fire spreads fastest: above suspended ceilings, in floor and roof voids and behind linings. Fitted continuously and fixed correctly, because a cavity barrier with a gap in it is a drawing detail, not a defence.
Steelwork, services and ductwork enclosed in fire-rated board systems built to the tested detail, with access panels that carry the same rating as the casing they sit in. Neat enough for occupied buildings, built to perform rather than just to cover.
Old cable runs, redundant pipework holes and the damage left by other trades filled with the right material for the wall or floor build-up, not whatever foam was on the van. Single-skin plasterboard patched over a 60 minute wall does not restore 60 minutes, and we do not pretend it does.
Each seal and repair logged with its location and photographed before and after, so the building owner or managing agent holds evidence of what was done and where. Passive protection is invisible when it is finished, which is exactly why the record matters.
Active fire protection is the kit that does something in a fire: alarms, extinguishers, sprinklers. Passive fire protection is the fabric of the building itself resisting fire: fire-rated walls and floors, fire doors, sealed service penetrations, cavity barriers and protected structure. It works by containing a fire in the compartment where it starts, buying time for people to escape and for the brigade to arrive. It needs no power and no activation, but it only works if it is complete, which is why one unsealed hole matters.
Compartmentation is the division of a building into fire-resisting boxes, so a fire in one flat, office or room is held there for a defined period, commonly 30 or 60 minutes. Escape routes, stair cores and the separation between flats all depend on it. In blocks of flats it underpins the whole evacuation strategy: a stay put policy is only credible when the compartment lines between flats and common parts are actually continuous. Most compartmentation failures are invisible from the room: they are above the ceiling, in the riser, or behind boxing.
Any point where a cable, pipe, duct or containment run passes through a fire-rated wall or floor. Each one is a hole in the compartment line, and an unsealed hole lets smoke through in minutes and fire soon after. Sealing is not one product for everything: a plastic soil pipe needs an intumescent collar or wrap that crushes the pipe shut as it softens, a bundle of cables needs batt and mastic or a tested sealant, and the fix has to match the wall or floor construction it sits in. Using a tested detail for each situation is the whole discipline.
Above suspended ceilings, in service risers and in the walls between flats and common parts. Those are the routes electricians, plumbers and broadband installers have used for years, often with nobody going back to seal behind them. The other repeat offender is expanding PU foam used as if it were a fire stopping product; on its own, ordinary foam is not, and we find it dressed over holes it cannot protect. A compartmentation check above the ceilings almost always finds work to do in an older building.
The responsible person, which in most blocks means the freeholder, the management company or the managing agent acting for them. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires the fire risk assessment to consider the structure and the common parts, and the Fire Safety Act 2021 put beyond doubt that the building's structure and external walls are within its scope. In practice that means the compartment lines, not just the extinguishers, are the responsible person's problem, and a recorded programme of fire stopping is how it gets discharged.
Yes, and most of ours is. The work is room by room and riser by riser, so it can be sequenced around residents and staff, with access arranged in advance and areas left clean and finished at the end of each visit. Dusty operations are contained, escape routes are never blocked, and anything opened up is closed or protected before we leave for the day. Occupied blocks are the normal condition of this trade, not the exception.
Based in Croydon and out across South London, Surrey and Kent most days, so a survey visit is rarely more than a couple of days away.
Tell us what you've got, whether a single door, a block of flats or a commercial building, and we'll arrange a survey and give you a straight, written quote. The quickest way to reach us is a call or a WhatsApp.
Tell us about the doors or the building and we'll come back to you with a straight answer.