Concerns have been raised over the validity of some external wall system (EWS1) forms after a fire engineer was sanctioned by the Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE) last year. On 25 January 2025, the IFE confirmed that the sanction against Adam Kiziak, Director of fire safety consultancy Tri Fire, had been extended due to complaints received and would remain in place until their investigation, which is unprecedented in its seriousness for the Institution, had concluded. You can read more in this Fire Protection Association (FPA) article. 

Several mortgage lenders are not offering mortgages based on EWS assessments completed by Tri Fire — a widely used supplier for EWS1 certification — without further information and validation, creating problems for buyers and sellers. A number of major landlords and property managers have stopped working with Tri Fire, and Homes England has suspended the company from its approved panel of firms providing fire risk appraisals of external walls (FRAEWs) for applicants of the government Cladding Safety Scheme.

James Groves, director at fire safety consultancy BB7 shares his thoughts on implications for the industry and the way forward.   

Who can sign off an EWS1 form?

Option A (where external wall materials are unlikely to support combustion) — the EWS1 form can be completed by a signatory having the expertise to identify relevant materials within the external walls and attachments and whether cavity barriers and fire stopping have been installed correctly. The signatory should be a fully qualified member of a relevant professional body within the construction industry, although not necessarily with expertise in fire engineering.

Option B (where combustible materials are present in external walls) — the signatory would need a higher level of expertise in the assessment of the fire risk presented by external wall materials. For IFE members, this should be a Chartered (CEng) or Incorporated (IEng) Engineer with full membership of the Institution. For non-IFE members, the signatory should be a fully qualified member of a relevant professional body dealing with fire safety in the built environment with either actual or equivalence to CEng or IEng status.

Qualifying Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), Chartered Association of Building Engineers (CABE), Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists (CIAT), Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) and IFE professionals completing the RICS External Wall System Assessment Training Programme can conduct external wall assessments and sign EWS1 forms (Options A and B) for low or medium risk residential buildings below 18 metres height. For complex or high-risk buildings (such as those with a basement car park or high-risk commercial premises), an IFE member with CEng/IEng status or equivalence as above would instead be required.

The RICS has indicated awareness that unqualified people may be signing off EWS1 forms and condemned anyone doing so given the potentially dangerous consequences for residents.

Thousands of buildings have unsafe cladding as remediation efforts continue

More than 5,000 buildings of eleven metres and above have been reported as having unsafe cladding, according to the latest building safety remediation data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). Highlighting the progress being made across all five of the government’s remediation programmes – the Building Safety Fund, Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) remediation, Cladding Safety Scheme, developer-led remediation and works reported by registered providers of social housing – the MHCLG report shows the latest data on unsafe cladding as of December 2024. Read the FPA article.

 

Source: Insurer partner Arch Insurance