Clerk Of Works

Helping contractors to meet client specifications and ensure contracts run efficiently

 

A recent independent survey of fire doors fitted on various sites across the country uncovered an alarming number of unsatisfactory installations, in some cases so bad that door(sets) needed to be completely refitted, and our own experiences on a number of sites echo this survey. We have witnessed ‘brand new’ fire doors fitted in new buildings with such poor standards as to render the doors totally ineffective as fire doors.

Whilst having no formal ‘Clerk of Works’ qualifications (indeed as far as we are aware no formal qualifications exist) our experience, training, and certification as fire door inspectors ideally and uniquely qualifies us to, in effect, act as a ‘CoW’ as far as fire door installations are concerned whether we are engaged by the architect, the client or indeed the builder.

Ideally, we would meet site management prior to installation commencement, at which point we can provide invaluable on-site practicable advice to the fitters and point out some of the more common ‘errors’ we commonly see.

We would then normally visit the site during the first few days of installation to inspect the first few installed doorsets. At this point, we would iron out any minor discrepancies.

Depending on the size of the job we would then make periodic inspections before, at the end of the install, carrying out a full and final full survey and report a successful and compliant fire door installation.

This then provides site management with a degree of comfort that the fire doors are fitted correctly when Building Control carries out their site inspection. Fewer remedial issues mean fewer costly delays on-site, keeping the all-important building programme on schedule.