With such a huge estate, Whitbread needed a partner who could inspect all the fire and smoke dampers at every one of its locations with maximum efficiency and the minimum of disruption to its service. National Fire Damper Inspections (NFDI) won this prestigious business after a competitive tender process, with stakeholders particularly impressed by our commitment to service and the fact that fire and smoke dampers are our only business. We’re very much specialists, not jacks of all trades.
Working within the logistics of over one thousand locations and the nature of its 24/7 business, NFDI began ensuring compliance with BS 9999: 2017 to everyone’s satisfaction. With teams deployed throughout the UK, each hotel visited had a full report on its fire and smoke dampers (including multiple images of all dampers), as well as a plan of action to rectify any dampers which didn’t pass the integrity test. Our specialist knowledge meant that where further action was needed, we could provide a solution and Whitbread could see the extent of the work in advance.
All 800 hotels and associated restaurants – more than 1,200 facilities in all – were inspected and tested within the contract timeframe of 12 months. As a result of on-budget, on-time contract execution, the contract has been extended by three years.
Our experience in working with hotel management and staff and our understanding of how to minimise hotel guests disruption are second to none and we hope that we can bring this experience to your hotel soon.
After canvassing RBH and impressing with our relationships and delivery across the hospitality sector, we were invited to bid in March 2022. It was clear to us that as a gateway to many of East London’s attractions (including the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Westfield and plenty of nightlife options), a key part of delivery would be to ensure the least possible disruption to guests at the hotel.
We presented our plan to do this by working closely with the hotel staff to coordinate our activity. This demonstrated our appreciation of, and experience in, this sector, and helped to underline the fact that we’re specialists when it comes to fire and smoke dampers.
As a result, the RBH team awarded us the contract in May.
With 775 dampers to inspect and service, meticulous planning was essential. This included highlighting any potential access issues with on-site contractors well in advance, so that everything was in place (or in many cases, out of the way!) when it came to carrying out the work itself.
As a result, the whole project was completed successfully in a little over four weeks, not only with the hotel continuing to operate normally, but with the project coming in under budget and ahead of schedule.
With the job completed on 16th June, NFDI could issue the full report and asset register on 20th June.
During the course of testing, our team discovered a widespread problem, but used its experience and expertise to put things right with minimum disruption to the hotel management, staff and most importantly, its guests.
Connected directly to Gatwick Airport North Terminal and via free transit to the South Terminal, the hotel is a 24/7 hotel with a continual flow of guests to and from its 194 bedrooms. The NFDI team was on site to inspect and service the 469 motorised fire and smoke dampers which served the bedrooms, bathroom extracts and back-of-house areas while the hotel continued to operate normally. Despite the size of the task, this is actually a fairly normal job for the team.
However, a new challenge was soon discovered: the actuators for a large number of the fire dampers were disconnected from the actuator spindle itself. This meant that dampers ‘connected’ to this spindle were fixed in the closed position, preventing air flow into many guest bedrooms and creating a stuffy atmosphere that could encourage the build up of mould.
To make matters worse, the areas the team needed to reach to fix the problem were extremely difficult to access as they are located in tight risers with the key grub screws out of sight.
With 56 of the 469 dampers identified as being in the closed position, the NFDI engineers took the decision to fix this problem immediately, rather than file a report and address it at a later date.
The team needed all of its skill and specialist knowledge to attach the dampers to the spindle ‘blind’ in very cramped conditions. But despite the high degree of difficulty, NFDI fixed 54 of the 56 dampers whilst on site.
This not only provided an immediate and significant improvement to airflow and guest comfort in the affected rooms, but the cost to the client was minimal as the work was identified and completed at the same time as the main scheduled test – no additional visits to the hotel were needed and the whole process was completed on time, despite the additional workload.
