Design: General Requirements: Legislation: Approved Document B

Current substantive version published in 2000.
Amendment published 2002.
Substantial review commenced in 2004.
Consultation document anticipated 2005.

Approved Document B (ADB) provides guidance for some of the more common building situations. If the guidance is followed the resulting design could be considered as meeting the fire safety requirements of the Building Regulations.

The document is based on relatively prescriptive guidance which states how the building should be constructed to meet the requirements.

However, the ADB is NOT mandatory and there is no obligation to adopt any particular solution contained in the document if the requirements can be met in any other way that can demonstrated to and readily be checked by Building Control Bodies.

The document acknowledges that an alternative approach to following the guidance is for fire safety engineering (performance-based) to be adopted. A fire safety engineering approach should consider:

The probability of a fire occurring.
The likely fire severity.
The ability of a structure to resist the spread of fire and smoke.
The consequential danger to people in and around the building.

For some large and complex buildings and in buildings containing different uses (i.e. airport terminals) a fire safety engineering approach may be the only practical way to achieve a satisfactory standard of fire safety.

It is also possible to adopt a fire safety engineering approach to solve a particular problem with an aspect of building design, with the rest of the design following the prescriptive rules given in the ADB.