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What's It Like To Specialise In Fire Safety? · The Electrical Show

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The Electrical Show with Thomas Naji sponsored by Boss Professional Powerful Power Tools Talk for
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measuring tools and Experts, Accessories Spirits. Welcome to the Electrical Show and Thomas
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Najie with Paul Meanan as always in Returning to the show today is Dan Jackson,
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a fire safety principal consultant who works in rail infrastructure and social housing.
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Now we've well we are producer Paul No, it is the stress. It
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is the stress of having Paul and Dan in the same room together. Thank
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you. You know, it's like an interview I'm never going to pass.
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But our producer Mark thought it would be a fantastic idea to get Dan back
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in. So we're going to explore fire safety as a specialism. We're going
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to find out what's in store for anyone looking to get into this aspect of
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our trade Fix Radio Time to crack on. Thomas Naji and Paul Meanland is
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here on today's show with Jackson. He's returned as well so that he can
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talk about specializing in fire safety. So if you just tuned in, don't
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worry because we're just getting started now. Dan, welcome back week number two.
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This could be a weekly thing. But before I know, I'm just
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going to get slowly eked out the door and it'll just be the yeah,
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he laughed, Mark. Yeah, no, but it's good to have you
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back on a serious note. But start by telling us how you got into
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this, into this industry, this sort of this trade as it were.
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I started out as an electrician, lowly electrician, god of the trade,
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God bless you. It kind of juste fell into it. So I'm a
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time served electrician, done a jib electrical apprenticeship and yeah, I mean my
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dad's a builder, retired builder actually, and I started to do a levels
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and I dropped out to earn money to party and chase girls. Sounds familiar.
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Yeah, And then my dad kind of encouraged me to get into a
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trade. He said, don't come work for me as a builder because you
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know, and he said, you know, electricians it's really clean and tidy
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and they earn loads of money. So I looked into it, applied for
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literally two hundred jobs, and someone fortunately gave me one. That was it.
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That's how I got into the electrical industry. And now, I mean,
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I do work with an the electrical industry, but it's fire safety's that's
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my discipline. But it's been I mean I've been in the industry now nineteen
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years and it's gone quick, very quick. So yeah, I've got the
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fireside of it. How did that if you started as electrician? Where did
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the fire sort of come into it? So the first so I actually done.
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I worked for free companies during my apprenticeship, and the third one where
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I qualified, they had an alarm you know, security alarmed division, and
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then they started doing fire, security, fire, that kind of thing.
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And when I was working around the country, they used to get us electricians
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to wire the cables. And then the fire alarm engineer was really unreliable and
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quite often he didn't turn up. And I was like, thank can you
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have a go at commissioning this system? Can you do this? Can you
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do that? And I was younger at the time, and I was like,
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you know, I'll give it a bash, give me the manual.
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Had to go at it, quite enjoyed it. And then when I set
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up an electrical contract in business, I come across a tender which was an
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electrical contra maintenance contract and it had to include fire jumped on it and part
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of it was to get third parties certificated was like, see this as a
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challenge, and it kind of just went from there until I was more of
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electrical I would say, more electrical discipline, but it just moved more and
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more into fire over time. That's where his ism come from. And what
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about you, what do you currently do now? What's your r now?
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Because you work for Paul C. T C. But you also work for
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yourself as well doing fire, don't you. Yeah. So I'm a fire
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safety consultant, so I advise clients on various fire safety matters. So it
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might be something to do with five safety management. It could be building a
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new railway station. So I'm a fire engineer and it's not to be confused
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with a fire alarm engineer. I'm that as well, by the way,
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but I would say I'm a fire engineer fire safety consultant. Fire engineering is
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about building design, ensuring that the fire elements of a build are factored into
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the design of the building. So yeah, it's quite broad. Can I
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just add a bit to this? So you're underselling yourself a little bit because
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you start out as a spark well done bread and butter stuff tick. You
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then went into your fire alarm commissioning and specialism, and you became very very
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very good and very knowledgeable at firearms. You then took a monstrous leap into
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the world of well. You then went from commissioning systems and understanding panels and
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equipment to understanding the standards to a point where you knew more than most you
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know, and obviously we're one of the early adopter youtubes. I'm sat in
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front of two of them now doing YouTube stuff as Danzy engineer. And then
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you went full on and you now in university doing degrees. You're a consultant
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advising me on fire safety matters, and you're one of the best in the
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industry in my opinion, because you're a common sense farm right. Thank you
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very much. One thing I will say in my career, when there's been
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a fire, there's a knee jerk reaction and there's a demand for upskin in
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etc. And I've jumped on that opportunity. So one of the big fires
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for me was Clanden House. One of my client groups had quite a major
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fire. Fortunately no one was injured in that, and they kind of said
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to me, look, we know you do fire systems, etc. What
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about passive So it kind of like led on to understanding passive fire protection upskilling
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and also if we didn't do that, we potentially won't be procured and used
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again. So there was a huge need. Would it worth while just telling
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the listeners what the difference between passive and active fire? Yeah? Active,
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you know your electronics system, so detection, smoke, ventilation, et cetera
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is active stuff that operates automatically sometimes manual. Passive is the building structure,
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so for example you have fire compartmentation, you'll have theear doors and that's to
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contain the fire. The Electrical Show Thursday from three and catch up anytime at
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Fix Radio dot co dot uk, the builder station Fix Radio. This is
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the Electrical Show with Bosh Professional and Thomas Naji with pull me in and we're
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talking about specializing in fire safety with Dan Jackson. Now, Dan, what
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what kind of person suits the sort of role and working in this aspect of
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our trade. Hmm. So as a fire engineer you need to know how
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to say no and stand your ground. It's actually really important because a lot
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of people don't understand fire safety and fire design and you'll get a lot of
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you know, commercial pressure to agree to things. As you know, the
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fire engineer, which might not quite meet standards and you have to navigate you
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know, hearts and minds and communication skills. But I tend to find as
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there's three types of fire engineers. You you get the really strong characters,
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really really strong characters, table bangers. Yep, absolutely, it sounds really
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bad, but you have to get ready for a fight in a massive project.
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With fire engineering, you have to be ready to fight your corner and
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stand your ground. And the only thing that trump's that is intelligence. Literally,
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someone who knows the standards inside out and knows how to be so fully
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spoken and trumps that really strong character. And then the other type of fire
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engineer is the really quiet ones that don't really you know, stand out an
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ave one. The passive ones. Yeah, exactly that poor and they do.
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Some of them do struggle, although you know, there's different skills.
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A lot of grads who have fantastic mathematic skills where some fire engineers may struggle
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a little bit. But yeah, the ones who couldn't like a coundle and
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realize there was a fire on the top of it, Yeah, they do
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exist. I've met some of them. What about the most challenging aspects of
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what you do. People don't understand fire safety who aren't in fire safety,
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and in fact, some disciplines within fire safety don't even understand fire safety is
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very common. So you get your you get your extinguisher people who think that
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extinguishers, you know, will save the world. You get your detection people
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who actually create more problems within the building fabric by penetrations and what have you.
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So fires like it's like the dark art in honesty, and people don't
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quite understand it. So it's trying to get other sections of the trades to
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understand fire safety in the way that they can communicate with you, and it
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can be really difficult. Yep, it is. If you mind, if
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I give you a little story of my experience with fire. So when I
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was still on the tools, I was basically installing fire alarms in the underground
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and I remember going being asked go to a meeting and the chief engineer at
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London Underground was a table banging lunatic with a beard, and I loved him
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because he owned the room and he got things done and I thought, great,
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that's what I need. And I've in my career become like a generalist
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specialist, so I've had to know a little bit about a lot in building
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services, and I'll never forget. And Danny's the reason why I say Dan's
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very good and I'm fortunate to skim that world. Is I remember and I
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probably shouldn't say this, but I'm going to say anyway, there was a
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new railway station being built with no fire alarm and I said, well,
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common sense, surely you'll have a fire alarm. And I had at the
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time the former chief engineer for Network. I'll going, No, you don't
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know what you're talking about. It doesn't need it. You're not a fire
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engineer. I was so angry. I went and did a knee bosh fire,
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which is a very expensive long course, and I got a distinction,
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purely fueled by rage. And when I next met him, he went,
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you're not qualified fire, And you know I managed to wave certificate in front
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of him, and actually, I've got some qualifications in this. So fire
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is an amazing place to sharpen your pencil of knowledge. And also in the
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recent amendment to the RIGS, Dan's done some webinars with us. Fire has
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started working more and more into the wire and RIGS hasn't it for protected escape
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routes and well, thinking about it, for electricians, it's always been there
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pole, but they've had to make it more clearer in layman term job definitely.
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Actually, I'm just that while you've just been talking, I've just been
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thinking if you're just talking about fireproofing between walls and stuff, So when you
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put cables through and stuff and you're sucking intermiscent seedlands or sighting to fill that
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void which you've just passed a cable through. If you drill a hole through
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a wall and then you put an FP through it, and that's traditionally you
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would put a piece of conduit there. Yeah, you would sleave it and
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then you put u FP inside the conduit. Do you have to fill?
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Do you see? I'm going with this? Like how far do you go
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with this receiling business. It's really difficult because every manufacturer is different. So
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you have to have a product that is suitable to the application, and it's
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really really important. So the idea in that instance, let's say you had
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PVC conduit as you're you know where your cable's going through, there's intermiscent products
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that crush the plastic and seal the whole. Not all have that same performance.
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So if you just used an intermiscent ceiling, it might just swell a
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little bit. But you need to find the right one that does the job
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that you're looking for it to do, because you obviously, in some instances
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you want it's really important to maintain that you don't have smoke going from one
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side to the other. In some instances it's not too bad. So for
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example, if it's open air on the outside, you might not be too
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bothered about that, but if it's an escape route, it's a big problem.
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Can we just also say no pink foam for an one listening to them?
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Yeah, just because something says it's fire it's fire rated, does not
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mean it's going to work for your application. You need a considered design or
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a considered application of what am I doing and what is the reasonable risk mitigation?
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Because if there is a fire, I'm the last contractor there. I've
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put a twenty little bit of conjurit is what I did suit was sufficient?
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Did I correctly select the product to seal it after me? Yeah? And
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a good manufacturer you should say, I'm an electrician, I'm doing this.
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Here's the information. Can you tell me what is the best solution for this
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and they should come back with you know, the fire test data, the
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application drawings, et cetera, and say this is what we recommend fixed radio.
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You're listening to The Electrical Show and Thomas Naji with Paul Meenan, and
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we're talking to Dan Jackson about his experiences as a fire safety consultant. Now,
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Dan, if I'm right, in your twenties, you built what I
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understand was a very successful business as an electrical and fire safety contractor. How
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did you How did you go about that? I guess is probably the better
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question. Jumped on opportunity. You know, if I see an opportunity and
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I want to, I want to and I see something in it that I
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like, I'm going to jump on that. And actually I think I was
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twenty two when I set up my electrical contract in business, and it was
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in twenty ten, if I remember rightly, which was sort of at the
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beginning of the recession, and it was yeah, yeah, And what happened
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was is the company I was working for, due to the bank pulling money
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out of finances or whatever, they went busted overnight. So we had loads
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of work and I jumped on that opportunity. Set up and started working.
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So I was made redundant on I believe it was on the Monday and by
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the Monday night I was working. Okay, what were some of the keys
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successes for you there? I mean a lot of it. I mean is
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there is an element of everything. So it was just being in the right
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place at the right time. I guess I don't believe in that. I
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believe we put ourselves in our position, if I'm honest, No, I
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think you just work your backside off, you knowing you for as long as
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I have, you work your backside off. Yeah, I mean, of
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course there's some things that just fall in our lap and what have you.
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But I mean, I think you've always got to have the mindset of you're
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always learning and you're never always right. And also, you know, continuous
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improvement plan, do check act. It's really important to have your plan,
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carry out the plan, check what you're doing, to verify what you're doing.
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And also if you if you find any mistakes, like you know,
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revise. So if you're doing something that's not going quite right, you need
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to change your plan. And that's happened multiple times within you know. When
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I've I mean i've had multiple businesses. If I'm honest, that particular one
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was definitely the most successful to date. That for me, it was more
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of you know, I was young at the time, and I just used
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it as lessons. The whole thing was about learning the whole thing. Why
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do you decide to sell? Though? I mean you could have kept it
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and grown. Why sell? If I'm being completely honest, I was bored
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at that time in my life. I felt I needed a bit of a
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shake up and I needed a new challenge because it was just the same old,
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same old. I didn't get on with my best business partner too well.
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We had a different vision and the business. Although it was successful,
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I felt that we were kind It was like you get jobs done by him,
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you get jobs done by me. It's like a different business. And
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I felt that we just needed to you know, and he's still doing okay,
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and I don't, you know, wish him all the best, but
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I felt personally I just needed to break away and try saying you, well,
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any input, No. I've known Dan's journey for a number of years
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now, so I've seen the highs and the lows and the successes, and
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they're not so successful. And I know, the man is a machine and
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he he doesn't have the quick Barton in him, that's for sure. What's
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been some of the career highlights? Hmmm, career highlights? I think I
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think one was becoming the e c A Power Player of the Year. I
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was there, Yeah, was there. Can we tell this the true story
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of it? Or do we not tell the true story? We go for
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it? Why not? Okay? So so Dan Dan was on a sabbatical,
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that's that's the term we use, sabbatical from the world and the E
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five and electrical contracting with his at the time good lady wife and he there
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was this ECA A Power Player Awards thing and we were still texting and stuff,
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and so he decided to enter it for fun as a bit of a
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laugh, and he won. Okay, he won it. The whole thing
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was like a yeah, go that would be a fund and he wanted it
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and me and him went to actually pick the ward up. It was.
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It was on a you know, I was winging it. I was like,
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let's see what we can do here. Posted a video and they quite
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liked what I posted. You were half naked in it? I was,
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yeah. The Electrical Show on fixed radio that's it for today's Electrical show,
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where we've been talking to Dan Jackson about specializing in fire safety. Now,
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Dan, just before we wrap things up, just for somebody who's thinking of
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maybe getting into the fire safety side of things, what would be your approach
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into that journey without doing a university degree, which might not be an option
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for some people. I think you need to work in a particular fire safety
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discipline such as sprinklers, fire alarms, and just progress through your career from
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there. So don't don't look at it as you have to start in,
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you know, because fire safety is really broad actually so, but you've got
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to start somewhere, So get get your foot in the door, and just
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look for learning, learning, learning. I've definitely that's one thing I know
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I've absolutely learned from you guys. The more you learn, the more you
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earn, It's absolutely true. Just the more you've got to be learning or
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earning you've got to do. If you can do both, great, but
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you've got to be doing one of them. Yeah, and the fact that
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was you taught me that. Yeah. Yeah. My advice to people getting
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into fire safety is simple. If you're electrician, you're halfway there. Two
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can you breathe and to can you read a drawing or take direction? If
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you can do that, you're you're laughing because it's a great ism to have.
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And the fire industry, if I can just wave a flag, is
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desperate for decent skilled stalls is desperate. And do you know what, it
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always makes me wonder how we do struggle getting people into the industry because there's
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a huge demand, there's loads of work, and it pays pretty good as
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well. It's too honest with you. It's the first ism that if you're
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an electrical contractor you should look at. Because you can install cabling, well,
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then that's a majority of the battle. You've just got to have some
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really cleared up guys who can commission and do all the rest of it.
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So yeah, it's to me, it's the first stopotisms. If you can
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get really good at fire, the likes the smart homes and all the battery
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storage and everything else, and you think about battery storage now, the number
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of fires on that solar fires. We recommend now that if you've got like
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a solar generating system, that you link the fire alarm system to the invert
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to send a signal if the fire alarm goes off, shut the inverter off.
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Otherwise you're going to have a mains cable going through your building and the
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firemen are trying to put it out and everything else is off. You need
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to make sure that's all shut down. So and that does happen on some
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buildings that are presuming. Now, any other final thoughts aob in fire safety,
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particularly, legislation's really changed in the last few years, and I think
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we don't. I think we're going down the wrong road of there's a lot
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of increase in what is deemed competent by a framework, but I think that's
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not necessarily where the time and energy and resource should be spent in to improve
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in what we're doing in the industry. I think I think it's in individuals,
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and there's a lot of legislation and guidance of legislation that is changing that
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actually makes it very easy for very much larger companies to sort of, you
20:23
know, commit to but it's very difficult for the smaller companies you mean,
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the bigger companies to manipulate to collect the logo. Yeah, basically, Paul,
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basically, And it's becoming more and more of a monopoly for sure.
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And that's why, you know, I like to encourage to get people in
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who have you know, electrical contractors, particularly because, like you said,
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Paul, are halfway there. Okay, My AOB area of outstanding beauty,
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as Tom referred to last week, is a wokie hole down down in the
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Big Toe of England where you can go there into a cave and just go
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and act like a wikie for hours and you out, which is what I
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did once. I actually went into wokie hole and literally did my Chebeka impression
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until somebody asked me to leave. And that's my AOB. Who was that?
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Be miserable and it was one on the staff. Sorry, I thought
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you were talking about your area of outstanding U. Sorry. Thank you for
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joining us these past two weeks down It has been a real pleasure. Thank
21:19
you very very much. You can hear the show again from ten o'clock tonight
21:25
right here on fixed radio. If you've missed any of it, you can
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download it don't forget as a podcast now. You can find the links to
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