Posted By DM2005
Hi, just wondering if anyone has any idea what the going rates consultants charge to do a fire risk assessment - presuming it'd take about half a day work for one restaurant?
Cheers
Dave

Posted By Steven
I had a quote for a suitable and sufficient Fire Risk Assessment from a Fire Appliance Company and was quoted £1200, they did say that they would review it when ever required at no cost!!!

Steve

Posted By DM2005
£1200 I think thats little steep maybe for a whole a factory! This is just for a small restaurant.

Posted By RA
Go on toecap- I am sure you have raised a few eyebrows there!!

LOL

RA

Posted By Graeme
HAHA at a qualification making you "competent"

made my day

Posted By Phillipe
Hi

I attended the NEBOSH on Fire Risk Assessment. A very good course it was with lots of factual information and good ideas on how to undertake the risk assessment.

I assessed a kitchen and restaurant yesterday afternoon. It took in all including the report anfd reccommendations around 4 -5 hours in total.

If I had asked someone to do it for me I would not have paid any more then £350.00.

I would suugest you do the course and do it yourself, gain the experience and competance and then take it from there.

Posted By Martin Monaghan
What sort of premises would a "responsible person, with limited formal training or experience" be competent to carry out, assuming they read the appropriate guide document?

(see http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1162115)

Martin.

Posted By DM2005
Thanks for the responses.
Regards,
Dave

Posted By JAI
I sent an e mail to ‘fire.safetyreform@communities.gsi.gov.uk’ asking them to confirm what level of qualifications and experience it would take to show competence to undertake a fire risk assessment

Guess what no reply?

So due to the sheer size of our business and paying a fortune out in consultant’s fees I have attended two Fire Risk Assessment courses, one at my local fire training centre the other an Institute of Fire Engineers accredited course both on fire risk assessment added to these 10 years Health & Safety experience, resulting in conducting the fire risk assessments myself saving large sum’s of money

I am fortunate to have a friend who is a member of the Institute of Fire Engineers so I had him pay a visit and check my assessments, you can further prove competence by sending off your assessments to the Institute of Fire Safety Managers they will check them and if good enough you will gain membership further proving your competence

You will find many consultants from fire companies try to sell you lots of equipment you do not require on the back of the risk assessment

(Too much in one place puts people more in danger as the one extinguisher rule goes out the window due to bigger supplies)

Back to the question I would not pay more than £250 - £300 for an assessment including an emergency plan

Jai

Posted By shaun mckeever
Couple of points here. Firstly, I don't know if anyone saw my post in another thread but a couple of days ago I saw an improvement notice issued by a local fire authority for a fire risk assessment that was considered not suitable and sufficient. Secondly, it was a restaurant fire that led to the most expensive fire in the UK so far. If you are going to do the risk assessment make sure you are adequately insured!

Posted By Arran Linton - Smith
Last year I had a complex fire risk assessment to be undertaken and a local authority fire officer asking me what the organisation was going to do about it. After stating that we were going to seek the services of a fire expert, he requested that our organisation attempted it and his organisation would examine it.

He put it quite simply, “you do it, you learn, you take ownership of the problem and the organisation becomes more competent in fire management as a result of the opportunity”.

As a result of this exercise, the organisation switched its fire strategy from fire fighting to fire prevention.

Posted By Adrian Watson
Dear All,

Like many of the questions on this forum, this is a "how long is a piece of string?" question ... and yes I know, for the wags, that it's twice as long as from the middle to the end!

Like many things pricing is a contentious issue and is difficult to answer in the abstract. Generally what you want, determines what you should pay. However, what you pay determines what you get!

You can pay a reasonable fee for a person who is a local, trained, experienced and knowledgeable consultant who wants the work; conversely you can pay the same for a person who is local, but an untrained and inexperienced consultant who wouldn't know the hot end of a match if it burned him!

If you are going to ask for estimates or quotes - be specific in your requirements so you can compare like with like. You need to specify what type of service you want and what standard of service delivery you expect. The price for a small restaurant, serving 20 covers, in the middle of London; will not be same as one for a similar restaurant in the middle of the sticks! Nor will you get the same unit cost if the restaurant is one of twenty. Oh - by the way, asking the consultant to have a degree in fire engineering, 20 years experience and £20 Million PI cover may also vary prices, slightly!

Going on from the matter of fees, it is generally best if the knowledge to do risk assessments is obtained by somebody in-house as they should understand the business. However, there are exceptions as in all things. If the risk assessment is complicated or the knowledge will be used infrequently or rarely, I would suggest that it would be better to obtain the services of a competent professional consultant. In these cases the best course of action is to shadow the consultant to learn. This is not to become an expert but an educated layman who can ask the right question and more importantly understand the answer!

In summary:

1. If you can get the experience, get trained and do it in-house.

2. Use consultants only where needed; where you have limited time and resources to get a job done quickly, or ... for complex or difficult jobs where it is outside your level of competence.

3. Ensure you identify and specify your requirements carefully. Shop around, ask for qualifications, experience and references before getting quotes. Make sure you do buy on price alone ... you'll frequently start with a low front-end price, and end-up with a heavy bill!

4. Become an informed buyer and partner consultants to gain knowledge.

5. You generally get what you pay for! Buy cheap, pay later!

Regards Adrian Watson (Consultant)

PS Expect consultants to want to make a profit ... they're in business after all!

Posted By Adrian Watson
Dear All,

Like many of the questions on this forum, this is a "how long is a piece of string?" question ... and yes I know, for the wags, that it's twice as long as from the middle to the end!

Like many things pricing is a contentious issue and is difficult to answer in the abstract. Generally what you want, determines what you should pay. However, what you pay determines what you get!

You can pay a reasonable fee for a person who is a local, trained, experienced and knowledgeable consultant who wants the work; conversely you can pay the same for a person who is local, but an untrained and inexperienced consultant who wouldn't know the hot end of a match if it burned him!

If you are going to ask for estimates or quotes - be specific in your requirements so you can compare like with like. You need to specify what type of service you want and what standard of service delivery you expect. The price for a small restaurant, serving 20 covers, in the middle of London; will not be same as one for a similar restaurant in the middle of the sticks! Nor will you get the same unit cost if the restaurant is one of twenty. Oh - by the way, asking the consultant to have a degree in fire engineering, 20 years experience and £20 Million PI cover may also vary prices, slightly!

Going on from the matter of fees, it is generally best if the knowledge to do risk assessments is obtained by somebody in-house as they should understand the business. However, there are exceptions as in all things. If the risk assessment is complicated or the knowledge will be used infrequently or rarely, I would suggest that it would be better to obtain the services of a competent professional consultant. In these cases the best course of action is to shadow the consultant to learn. This is not to become an expert but an educated layman who can ask the right question and more importantly understand the answer!

In summary:

1. If you can get the experience, get trained and do it in-house.

2. Use consultants only where needed; where you have limited time and resources to get a job done quickly, or ... for complex or difficult jobs where it is outside your level of competence.

3. Ensure you identify and specify your requirements carefully. Shop around, ask for qualifications, experience and references before getting quotes. Make sure you do not buy on price alone ... you'll frequently start with a low front-end price, and end-up with a heavy bill!

4. Become an informed buyer and partner consultants to gain knowledge.

5. You generally get what you pay for! Buy cheap, pay later!

Regards Adrian Watson (Consultant)

PS Expect consultants to want to make a profit ... they're in business after all!

Posted By Dave Wilson
Do it yourself, I can send you across a leaflet which explains the steps and the info required.

Posted By Ashley Wood
It depends on who makes the fryer. I have seen several with lids. Other things that have improved over time are the safety cut outs i. e over heat and temperature controls. Also the type of oil that is being used. Different oils/fats have different flash points and auto ignition temperatures. Problems only occur if the temperature cut outs are faulty or the oil is over used. A bit of technical stuff here, as oil is used the free fatty acid (FFA) levels increase, as this happens the flash point and auto ignition temperature drops. So if the cut out is set when the oil is new and the oil FFA level starts to increase then this can lead to an incident. Closing the lid will only work if the heat is also switched off.

Posted By Ashley Wood
I agree DJ. I follow the guidance of PAS 79 with some individual modifications, I take photographs where I see a problem (just to emphasis the point), couple that with travel and then the preparation of the report (often 16 pages +) and this takes me a long day (10 hours or so). Add to that the cost of my PI, PL and memberships of associations to keep in touch with changes + purchases of all the British standards and NFPA standards. All of this costs money.

Look at it another way. Try and get a plumber for £300 day an electrician for £250 a painter a chippy for £250, when asking how much you have to put things into perspective. Yes, you may be able to get a retired fire officer who is on a nice pension for £200 + per half day, but you get what you pay for!