Ireland’s hotel and hospitality sector has seen sustained investment over the past decade. New hotel development in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, and across regional Ireland, combined with the refurbishment and extension of existing hotel stock, has generated consistent construction activity in a building type that has specific fire protection requirements that go beyond those for standard commercial buildings.
Hotels occupy a unique position in the fire safety regulatory framework. They are places where large numbers of people sleep, often unfamiliar with the layout of the building and in varying states of alertness. The consequences of a fire in a hotel at night, when corridors are dark, occupants are asleep, and evacuation is complex, are potentially very serious. Irish and Northern Irish building regulations reflect this by imposing fire resistance requirements on hotel buildings that are among the most stringent for any non-healthcare building type.
This article covers the passive fire protection requirements for hotels and hospitality buildings in Ireland, the specific challenges that hotel construction and refurbishment present, and how FireShield Ireland works with hotel developers, main contractors, and design teams on hospitality projects across Ireland and Northern Ireland.
FireShield Ireland carries out passive fire protection and structural steel fireproofing on hotel and hospitality construction projects across all 32 counties of Ireland and throughout Northern Ireland. Our full service information is at https://fireshieldireland.com/services/commercial-fire-protection/.
Fire Protection Requirements for Hotels in Ireland
Hotels in the Republic of Ireland are classified under purpose group 2, residential, in Technical Guidance Document B, which is the same classification as apartment buildings. This is because the primary concern in both building types is the safety of people who are sleeping, which creates a fire safety risk profile that is fundamentally different from an office building or a retail centre where the building is occupied only during the day by people who are awake and familiar with the escape routes.
The fire resistance requirements for elements of structure in hotels depend on the height of the building. For hotel buildings up to 18 metres in height, which covers the majority of hotel development in Ireland outside the major city centres, the required fire resistance period for elements of structure is 60 minutes. For taller hotel buildings the requirement increases to 90 minutes.
These requirements apply to the structural steel frame of any steel-frame hotel building. Structural columns, beams, and composite floor decks must all achieve the required fire resistance period, which means applying a certified fireproofing system to every structural element throughout the building.
In Northern Ireland, Technical Booklet E applies broadly similar requirements to hotel buildings, with the same height-based approach to determining the required fire resistance period for elements of structure.
Beyond the minimum requirements of the building regulations, hotel buildings in Ireland are subject to additional fire safety guidance specific to the hospitality sector. The Fire Services Acts impose ongoing obligations on hotel owners and operators in relation to fire safety management, including the requirement to hold a fire safety register and to maintain all fire safety systems in good working order. The guidance published by the Department of Justice and the local fire authorities on fire safety in hotels and guesthouses goes beyond the minimum building regulations requirements in several areas, including the provision of automatic fire detection and alarm systems throughout the building and the fire resistance of bedroom doors and bedroom walls.
Hotel Construction in Ireland: New Build and Refurbishment
Hotel construction in Ireland involves both new build development and the refurbishment and extension of existing hotel stock. Each of these project types presents different challenges for the passive fire protection contractor.
New build hotel construction in Ireland has been driven by strong demand for hotel accommodation in Dublin and the major regional cities, combined with the growth of tourism to Ireland and the increase in business travel. Dublin city centre, the Dublin airport area, and suburban Dublin have all seen significant new hotel development in recent years. Cork, Galway, and Limerick have also seen new hotel development driven by tourism growth and the expansion of their business and conference sectors.
New build hotel construction typically involves a steel frame, in many cases a composite steel frame with metal deck floors, that requires structural steel fireproofing throughout the building. The fireproofing must be completed progressively as the building rises, with each floor fireproofed before the ceiling installation and follow-on trades move into that floor. The programme for fireproofing on a new build hotel must be carefully integrated with the overall construction programme.
Hotel refurbishment projects present a different set of challenges. Refurbishing an existing hotel building while it remains partially or fully operational requires the fire protection work to be phased in a way that minimises disruption to hotel guests and operations. In some refurbishment projects, the hotel remains open throughout the construction programme with work being carried out in sections, which requires careful co-ordination between the construction activities and the hotel’s occupancy schedule.
In other cases a complete closure of the hotel during the refurbishment programme allows more efficient construction, but creates commercial pressure to complete the work quickly and reopen the hotel. In these cases the fireproofing programme must be tight and the contractor must be capable of resourcing the work to meet the programme deadline.
We carry out passive fire protection work on both new build hotel construction and hotel refurbishment projects across Ireland and Northern Ireland, adapting our programme and approach to the specific requirements of each project.
Structural Steel Fireproofing in Hotel Buildings
The structural fire resistance requirements for hotel buildings in Ireland, typically 60 or 90 minutes depending on height, must be achieved through the application of a certified fireproofing system throughout the structural steel frame. This is a substantial element of work on a multi-storey hotel building, particularly in city centre locations where hotels of six, eight, or more storeys are common.
On most hotel construction projects in Ireland the structural steel is concealed above suspended ceilings in corridors, above bathroom pods, and within the floor and ceiling construction. In these concealed locations Monokote spray applied fireproofing is the most practical and cost-effective system.
FireShield Ireland, as the only licensed Monokote applicator in Ireland, carries out Monokote spray applied fireproofing on hotel construction projects across Ireland and Northern Ireland. We have applied Monokote on hotel projects ranging from boutique city centre hotels to large airport and suburban hotels, and across all four provinces of Ireland.
Details of our Monokote service are at https://fireshieldireland.com/services/monokote-spray/.
Intumescent Coatings in Hotel Design
The public areas of hotels, including lobbies, reception areas, restaurants, bars, function rooms, and atria, frequently feature exposed architectural steel as a design element. Modern hotel design in Ireland places significant emphasis on the quality and character of public spaces as a differentiator in a competitive market, and architectural steel is a common feature of high-specification hotel interiors.
Exposed steel in hotel public areas requires intumescent coatings to achieve the required fire resistance while maintaining the visual quality that the interior designer has specified. The finish quality requirements for intumescent coatings in hotel public areas are typically high. The coating must provide a smooth, consistent, architecturally appropriate finish that can be specified in the colour and sheen level required by the interior design scheme.
We carry out intumescent coating work on hotel public areas across Ireland and Northern Ireland, working with main contractors, hotel developers, and interior design teams to achieve the finish quality required by each project. Our experience covers hotel reception areas, restaurant and bar spaces, atria and double-height lobbies, and all other hotel public areas where exposed structural steel requires fire protection.
Details of our intumescent coating service are at https://fireshieldireland.com/services/intumescent-coatings/.
Fire Compartmentation in Hotels
Fire compartmentation in hotel buildings is a demanding and complex element of the passive fire protection package. The design of the compartmentation must ensure that each bedroom forms an individual fire compartment, with fire-resistant construction to all walls, floors, and ceilings separating it from adjacent bedrooms and from the corridor. The corridor itself must be protected as an escape route, with the compartment construction ensuring that smoke and fire from a bedroom cannot spread rapidly into the corridor and compromise the means of escape for other hotel guests.
The required fire resistance for the bedroom compartment walls, floors, and ceilings in an Irish hotel depends on the height of the building and is set out in TGD-B and the associated guidance for residential buildings. In a 60-minute fire resistance building, the bedroom walls, floors, and ceilings must achieve 60-minute fire resistance. In a 90-minute building the requirement is 90 minutes throughout.
Every penetration through a bedroom compartment wall or floor by a service, including the electrical conduit to the room’s socket outlets and light fittings, the water supply and waste pipes to the en-suite bathroom, the fan coil unit pipework and ductwork, and all other services, must be fire stopped using certified products and systems. In a multi-storey hotel with hundreds of bedrooms, the number of individual fire stopping penetrations is very large and the management of fire stopping installation across the entire bedroom stack is a significant element of the passive fire protection programme.
Hotel Atria and Large Open Spaces
Many modern hotels in Ireland incorporate atria, double-height lobbies, and other large open spaces that present specific fire safety design challenges. These spaces, which are a significant architectural feature of the hotel, break the floor-by-floor compartmentation that would otherwise limit the vertical spread of fire and smoke through the building.
The fire engineering approach to atria in hotels typically involves a combination of smoke control systems to manage the movement of smoke within the atrium during a fire, fire engineering analysis to demonstrate that the atrium configuration achieves an acceptable level of fire safety despite the absence of conventional floor-by-floor compartmentation, and careful detailing of the structural fire resistance around the atrium perimeter.
The structural steel of the atrium itself, which may include large-span roof structures, exposed walkway frames, and architectural steel features at multiple levels, requires fire protection to the standard required for the building. This atrium structural steel is typically exposed as an architectural feature and requires intumescent coatings in a specified colour and finish.
We have experience of carrying out intumescent coating work on hotel atria and large open spaces across Ireland, including projects where the scale and height of the atrium structure created significant access and logistics challenges for the fireproofing application.
Dublin Hotel Construction
Dublin is the most active hotel construction market in Ireland, with new hotel development concentrated in the city centre, the airport area, and suburban locations across the greater Dublin area. The demand for hotel accommodation in Dublin from both leisure and business travellers has remained strong and continues to drive development of new hotel stock.
We carry out passive fire protection and structural steel fireproofing on hotel construction projects across Dublin city and county, including major city centre hotel developments, airport hotels, and suburban hotels across the Dublin commuter belt. We are familiar with working within the programme constraints of Dublin hotel construction, where the pressure to complete and open the hotel quickly is significant.
Regional Hotel Development in Ireland
Hotel construction is not limited to Dublin. Galway, Cork, Limerick, Killarney, and many other regional towns and cities with strong tourism or business travel demand have seen hotel development. The Shannon and Wild Atlantic Way tourism regions have seen investment in hotel stock across the west and north-west of Ireland. Northern Ireland’s hotel sector, driven by the growth of tourism to Belfast and across the north of the island, has also seen significant new development.
We carry out passive fire protection work on hotel construction projects across all regions of Ireland and Northern Ireland, including locations that are distant from our base in Omagh. Our ability to resource projects across the full island of Ireland allows us to serve the hotel development market wherever it is active.
Regulatory Compliance for Hotels in Ireland
The regulatory framework for fire safety in Irish hotels includes both the building regulations requirements and the ongoing operational fire safety obligations imposed by the Fire Services Acts.
The building regulations requirements are enforced through the Fire Safety Certificate and completion certificate process. The Fire Safety Certificate application for a hotel must demonstrate compliance with Part B of the Building Regulations including the structural fire resistance, the compartmentation, the fire detection and alarm system, and the means of escape. The completion certificate confirms that the building as built matches the certified design.
The operational fire safety obligations require hotel owners to maintain all fire safety systems in good working order, including the passive fire protection measures installed in the building fabric. Any building works carried out in the hotel after completion that affect the passive fire protection, including drilling through compartment walls for new services or modifications to the fire stopping, must be carried out correctly and documented.
We provide full documentation for every hotel passive fire protection installation, including the product data sheets, fire resistance calculations, installation records, and completion certificate. This documentation forms part of the hotel building’s health and safety file and provides the basis for managing the passive fire protection through the building’s operational life.
Getting Started on Your Hotel Project
For any passive fire protection requirement on a hotel construction or refurbishment project in Ireland or Northern Ireland, contact FireShield Ireland at the earliest stage of the design or pre-construction process.
We provide specification support, preliminary pricing, programme estimates, and technical advice at design stage and carry out installations to the standard required for hotel building control sign-off with comprehensive documentation as a matter of course. We are available to attend design team and pre-construction meetings anywhere in Ireland.
https://fireshieldireland.com/services/passive-fire-protection/
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