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Main­tain­ing the essen­tial safe­ty mea­sures will ensure that the building’s impor­tant safe­ty sys­tems are work­ing at the required oper­a­tional lev­el through­out the life of the building.

The type of main­te­nance need­ed depends on the com­plex­i­ty of the safe­ty mea­sure, equip­ment or fea­ture, and on the main­te­nance pro­gram expect­ed at the time of installation.

Types of buildings

Essen­tial safe­ty mea­sures apply to all build­ings apart from a house or out­build­ing. These include the fol­low­ing class­es, as defined in A3.2 of the Nation­al Con­struc­tion Code Series Vol­ume One, Build­ing Code of Aus­tralia Class 2 – 9 Build­ings (BCA):

Class 1b: Some board­ing hous­es, guest hous­es or hos­tels
Class 2: Build­ings con­tain­ing sole-occu­pan­cy units which are dwellings (e.g. apart­ments, blocks of flats)
Class 3: Back­pack­er accom­mo­da­tion, res­i­den­tial parts of hotels or motels, res­i­den­tial parts of schools, accom­mo­da­tion for the aged, dis­abled or chil­dren
Class 4: A dwelling in anoth­er class of build­ing
Class 5: Offices for pro­fes­sion­al or com­mer­cial pur­pos­es
Class 6: Shops or oth­er build­ings for sale of goods by retail, includ­ing cafes, restau­rants, milk bars, din­ing rooms, and bars
Class 7: Build­ings used for car parks, stor­age or dis­play of goods
Class 8: Lab­o­ra­to­ries or build­ings for pro­duc­tion or assem­bly of goods
Class 9: Pub­lic build­ings such as health care build­ings or assem­bly build­ings, night­clubs, bars etc.
What are essen­tial safe­ty mea­sures?
The term ​‘essen­tial safe­ty mea­sure’ is defined in Part 15 of the Build­ing Reg­u­la­tions 2018 (the Reg­u­la­tions) and includes items list­ed in Sched­ule 8 of the Reg­u­la­tions, such as:

air han­dling sys­tems (used for smoke haz­ard man­age­ment)
exit doors
ear­ly warn­ing sys­tems
emer­gency lifts
emer­gency light­ing
emer­gency pow­er sup­ply
emer­gency warn­ing sys­tems
exit signs
fire con­trol cen­tres
fire cur­tains and doors
fire extin­guish­ers
fire detec­tion and alarm sys­tems
fire hydrants
fire iso­lat­ed stairs
fire rat­ed mate­ri­als
fire win­dows
mechan­i­cal ven­ti­la­tion (incor­po­rate a cool­ing tow­er or hot or warm water sys­tem)
fire iso­lat­ed pas­sage­ways and ramps
paths of trav­el to exits
smoke alarms
smoke con­trol sys­tems
sprin­kler systems.

Co-ordi­nat­ing ESM is part of our stan­dard Com­mer­cial Prop­er­ty Man­age­ment Ser­vices, we work with lead­ing ESM providers to ensure our Land­lords and Ten­ants are meet­ing their require­ments and keep­ing build­ings and busi­ness­es safe. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion con­tact our office 03 9417 7906 enquiries@​miglicdean.​com.​au