Whether a project is a renovation, addition, tenant fit out, or new construction, all facility designs are subject to compliance approval by the local Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ). Our engineers and consultants review your work during the building design phase to verify fire protection, life safety, and accessibility code compliance is achieved to maintain project schedules.

Interpreting and applying building and fire safety codes can be a daunting task. With our in-depth knowledge of the regulatory landscape, we help clients successfully navigate code requirements and identify building and fire safety strategies that best fit the needs of their project. Our active involvement in international building and fire safety organizations allows us to stay informed of current standards and code updates and ready to address any potential concerns throughout the planning and installation process.

Without the right commissioning it is challenging to ensure that your fire and life safety systems will meet code minimum, performance-based design, and end-user requirements. Our systematic fire system commissioning and integrated testing approach for life and safety systems helps you document, verify, and sustain performance of the facility assets that are critical to your business.

Fire and life safety are pivotal considerations in today’s building designs. The integration of fire alarm systems, fire protection, life safety, and other fire protection systems into the design of all building types is essential for safety, property protection and code compliance. As leaders among fire and life safety consultants, we're actively involved in the development process for many of the fire protection system codes and standards. This knowledge and experience allow us to prepare accurate, cost-effective, state-of-the-art fire protection design and property systems.

In an emergency, it’s often difficult to predict and manage people and their actions. Having a well-designed Mass Notification and Emergency Communications system in place to alert, communicate and share information can save critical response time and potentially lives. Working with building owners, designers and architects, we determine system performance requirements and the right basis of design. System integrations with information display, distributed recipient systems and various building systems will ensure that the movement of people is most effective in your emergency.

Knowing the performance of your facility during day-to-day operations is critical to understand. Whether it is a concert hall, airport ticketing or a train station platform; circulation capacity and space is important to the overall efficiency of the building. Visual queues such as effective wayfinding, location of fare machines, design and location of security checkpoints and queue systems play a key role.

Modeling can help you simulate human behavior when subjected to smoke movement and physical barriers such as security gates and ticket kiosks. By accounting for these scenarios, we can help you identify potential modifications to inform security, emergency response, daily operations and improve life safety compliance.

We work seamlessly alongside the construction management team to make sure the fire, life safety, mechanical, electrical, structural (MES) and security systems installations are fully coordinated across all other disciplines. For Healthcare facilities, we conduct drawing reviews to protect our clients directly, Jensen Hughes operates as the representative with and/or for the hospital, ASC and Long Term Care Facility.

Codes and Standards require fire safety features based on a one-size fits all approach. While traditional compliance may be acceptable for many structures, it can limit design flexibility for many complex and state-of-the-art projects. Our engineers draw on advanced fire modeling techniques for alternative or performance-based designs as well as forensic applications to help achieve the desired vision and solve complex fire safety challenges.

The use of combustible exterior cladding and façade materials has become a serious threat to fire and life safety. Because of limited fire test documentation from manufacturers or potential material substitution during construction, many building owners are often unaware of their own potential risk. We’ve been performing external wall assembly tests and analysis for decades and have been instrumental in developing and conducting some of the first large-scale fire tests for evaluating fire spread of cladding and insulating materials since the 1970s, which became the NFPA 285 test method. Through our risk analysis and audit, our team of cladding and façade consultants can help provide answers and potential mitigation solutions to help owners and operators make informed decisions to protect and safeguard the people who live and work in their buildings and the property itself.