Consultancy

The Belgian legislation is characterised as prescriptive or normative. This implies that the required fire resistance classification of building elements is prescribed in the legislation and that this classification has to be demonstrated either through CE marking or through a European classification report if there is no CE marking available for the building product in question. A document, approved by the High Council for Prevention against Fire and Explosions, provides more explanation regarding the different methods stated in the Royal Decree of 7 July 1994 to demonstrate that a building product satisfies its prescriptions.

The Consultancy department has two main activities:

• If a classification for a building element has to be demonstrated that is not covered by DIAP or EXAP, the department Assessments can investigate the equivalence of performance in accordance with the Royal Decree of 12/07/2012 (Belgian Official Gazette of 21/09/2012). This investigation, mainly focussed on passive fire protection, is carried out by the Assessments department.
• If a building cannot comply with the legal obligations due to its characteristics (construction, materials used, …), you can draw on the Fire Safety Engineering department to examine if an equivalent degree of protection may be obtained. The results of this examination will form the basis of a derogation file that has to be approved by the Equivalence and Derogation Commission of the FPS Home Affairs.

Given the tendency of legislation to become more complexe and comprehensive, it is recommended to involve these departments from the start of the project.