I have spent over 38 years in the smoke ventilation industry. In that time, I have seen systems save lives. I have also seen systems that would not have saved anyone - not because they were badly designed or installed, but because nobody maintained them properly after handover.
That is why I formed and chaired the Smoke Control Association’s Maintenance Guidance Working Group. This article explains what I saw, why it mattered, and what we did about it.
What I Saw in the Industry
Across hundreds of site visits, commissioning jobs, and maintenance inspections, I kept encountering the same problems. Smoke ventilation systems that had been signed off as compliant at handover were found, sometimes just months later, in states that would have prevented them from functioning in a fire.
I am not talking about obscure edge cases. I am talking about fundamental failures: batteries that had never been tested since installation, actuators that had seized because nobody had operated them since commissioning, control panels displaying fault codes that building managers did not understand and had never reported, and smoke shafts that had been used as storage for building materials.
The most concerning part was not that these problems existed - every industry has maintenance challenges. What concerned me was that many of these buildings were being serviced by organisations that were considered competent. Maintenance visits were being logged. Certificates were being issued. But the actual quality of the work being done was, in too many cases, insufficient to ensure the system would perform when it mattered most.
Why Even Recognised Maintainers Were Getting It Wrong
The smoke ventilation maintenance sector had a fundamental problem: there was no single, clear, industry-agreed standard for what a maintenance visit should actually involve. BS 7346 Part 8 provided a framework, but it left significant room for interpretation. Different maintenance organisations were applying different standards, testing different things, and issuing certificates that meant different things.
Some maintainers were carrying out visual inspections only - checking that panels showed no fault lights and that vents appeared to be in place - without ever functionally testing the system. Others were testing individual components but not the cause-and-effect sequences that determine whether the system responds correctly to a real fire signal. And almost nobody was measuring airflow rates through smoke shafts, which is the only way to verify that the system is actually achieving the ventilation performance it was designed for.
The result: a building manager could have a valid-looking maintenance certificate on file, a system that had been inspected twice a year, and a smoke ventilation installation that would not have performed in a fire event.
The Decision to Act
I raised these concerns within the Smoke Control Association, and the response confirmed that this was not just my experience - it was industry-wide. Other SCA members were seeing the same problems. The gap between what maintenance should look like and what was actually happening on the ground was well understood by those working in the sector, but there was no formal guidance to close it.
That is when I proposed forming a dedicated working group to produce clear, detailed, practical maintenance guidance that would set a consistent standard across the industry. The SCA supported the initiative, and the Maintenance Guidance Working Group was established.
Building the Working Group
The working group brought together representatives from across the smoke ventilation sector - manufacturers, installers, maintenance providers, and specialists. The aim was to ensure the guidance reflected the realities of maintaining all types of smoke control systems, not just the systems made by any one manufacturer.
The group included engineers from Colt International, FDS Contracting, FTG, JLA, LINK Smoke Control, SCS Aftercare, SE Controls, and our own team at Vent Trade. We met every month or two for three years. Every session brought new scenarios that none of us had previously considered - edge cases from different building types, system configurations, and regional practices that challenged assumptions we had each held for years.
My own view going in was straightforward: only a qualified smoke ventilation engineer should install or maintain a smoke ventilation system. But through the working group discussions, it was drawn to my attention that the industry simply does not have enough specialist engineers to service every system in the country. It was not practical. The guidance had to accommodate that reality - setting clear competence thresholds for each level of inspection while recognising that daily and weekly checks would need to be carried out by trained building staff rather than specialist engineers.
I knew better than most how difficult it would be to raise competence levels across the sector. I had been a member of the SCA Training Committee since 2016, working to develop formal training programmes for smoke ventilation engineers. A decade of work on that committee taught me that changing an industry’s approach to training does not happen quickly - the training programme is only now coming to fruition in 2026. The delay was not for lack of effort. The training industry simply was not interested in developing courses for a sector as small as ours. We were not a large enough market to attract the attention of established training providers, so progress was painfully slow. That experience shaped my approach to the maintenance guidance: it had to be realistic about the workforce we have today, not the workforce we hope to have in the future.
It was important to me that the guidance was authored by people who actually maintain these systems on live buildings, not by people writing from a theoretical perspective. Every recommendation in the document was tested against the question: would this actually work on site, on a real building, with real constraints?
What the Guidance Covers
The resulting document - Guidance on Maintenance of Smoke Control Equipment - sets out a structured, tiered inspection regime that covers every type of smoke control system: natural ventilation, mechanical extract, pressure differential, and car park ventilation.
It defines who should carry out each level of inspection, from daily visual checks by a nominated person through to annual full commissioning checks by a Maintenance Engineer trained by the smoke control manufacturer or SMR01 registered. It specifies what should be tested at each interval, what tools and measurements are required, and what documentation should be produced.
Critically, it also includes examples of substandard practice - the real-world failures I had been encountering for years. Things like rewinding smoke extract fan motors (which destroys the fire certification), using non-certified replacement actuators, failing to replace expired batteries, and neglecting to measure airflow rates during maintenance visits.
These examples were included deliberately. The guidance needed to do more than describe best practice - it needed to show people what bad practice looks like, because many building managers and even some maintenance engineers did not recognise substandard work when they saw it.
What Has Changed Since Publication
The guidance has become a reference point for the industry. It gives building managers a clear benchmark against which to evaluate their maintenance provider’s work. It gives competent maintainers a structured framework to follow. And it gives the Smoke Control Association a foundation for the service and maintenance certification scheme that is currently being developed.
The Building Safety Act 2022 has added urgency to this work. The introduction of the Principal Accountable Person role, the golden thread of building safety information, and the Regulation 7 requirement to report faults within 24 hours have all raised the stakes for smoke ventilation maintenance. Building managers can no longer afford to accept maintenance certificates at face value - they need to understand what was actually tested and whether the system genuinely passed.
Why This Matters to Every Building Manager
If you are responsible for a building with a smoke ventilation system, the SCA Maintenance Guidance provides the clearest available answer to a critical question: is my system being maintained properly?
A maintenance certificate should mean something. It should confirm that the system has been functionally tested, that cause-and-effect sequences have been verified, that airflow rates have been measured, that backup power has been tested under load, and that any faults have been clearly reported with a pass, pass with advisories, or fail outcome.
If your current maintenance provider is not doing these things, the guidance gives you the evidence base to challenge them - or to find a provider who will.
The Smoke Control Association’s Guidance on Maintenance of Smoke Control Equipment is available for download from the SCA website. I would encourage every building manager, facilities team, and fire safety professional to read it.
If you have questions about maintaining your smoke ventilation system, or you want to discuss what a competent maintenance programme should look like for your building, contact our team at Vent Trade.
Sources
Official guidance and standards referenced in this article:
