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Fire Engineering Consultancy

Assessing and ensuring life safety and property protection in the event of a fire

Aboutservices

Welcome to LFE

LFE | Leaver Fire Engineering was founded by David Leaver, a Chartered Fire Engineer, skilled and experienced in assessing and ensuring life safety and property protection in the event of a fire. He began his career in the UK as a Structural Engineer, and after moving to New Zealand in 2012, studied to become a fully qualified Fire Engineer, obtaining a Masters’s Degree from the University of Canterbury.

What sets LFE apart, beyond their helpful and responsive nature, is the fact that they can assess fire safety across all three Building Code Compliance Pathways; Acceptable Solutions, Verification Methods, and Alternative Solutions. With the increased use of timber in the construction industry, and with rigorous building code standards to ensure fire safety, LFE are provided with skills that are supremely valuable when developing a construction project.

Whether you’re erecting a building from the foundations up, renovating or extending an existing structure, LFE is a friendly, knowledgeable, and professional Fire Engineering Consultancy that can be trusted to give best practice assessments and advice to ensure your work is up to code and safe for your community.

David who leads LFE, is a Chartered Fire Engineer with Engineering NZ, making him one of a select few in Aotearoa with the immense skills and experience needed to assess fire safety in all forms throughout the built environment. He is also an Auckland City Council-accredited Producer Statement Author.

David lives in Kapiti with his family, away from work he enjoys learning Te Reo Māori, spearfishing, and spending time with his whānau.

Our Services

Leaver Fire Engineering (LFE) provides a range of different services to suit the requirements of the project.
From concept advice to building consent documentation, fire safety is an integral component of the built environment.

Fire Engineering Design

Fire engineering design is integral to ensuring fire safety in new builds and renovations or refits. Fire engineering design includes determining means of escape, the presence of required safety systems, assessment of fire separations, firefighting provisions for Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ), and all other facets of building fire safety.

Peer Review

Fire Engineering that falls outside of an Acceptable Solution compliance pathway is required to be peer reviewed by a Chartered Fire Engineer. David’s experience and skills make for thorough and thoughtful peer reviews that guarantee that fire safety regulations are met or exceeded and that safety is ensured.

Strategic Advice

Whether you’re acquiring a building, looking to develop or form part of a Body Corporate, that wish to understand what could be required in respect of fire safety. LFE’s strategic advice is a professional service that identifies various options for you to consider to best suit your conditions.

Gap Assessments

Gap assessments are a key tool in assessing an existing building’s level of compliance when compared to today’s fire safety requirements.

LFE provides a Gap Assessment that identifies any shortfalls in compliance and the necessary steps to address these shortfalls. Following the completion of the Gap Assessment and discussing the findings with the building owner and/or project team, LFE can present the findings of the assessment to the local Council to agree on the forward approach.

Construction Monitoring

Following the completion of the design, LFE also offers Construction Monitoring and Administration services. These services include undertaking site inspections to ensure elements of the fire engineering design have been constructed correctly.

Site reporting is provided following each site inspection, which identifies progress and any defects to be addressed. Following the completion of the construction, LFE will provide a PS4, that confirms the fire engineering aspects of the project have been completed and constructed in accordance with the requirements of the Fire Report.

Passive Fire

Passive fire design is about ensuring fire rated separations such as walls and floors are not compromised by penetrations or improper termination of wall/floor junctions.

LFE’s passive fire assessment involves collaborating with the project team to identify the type, orientation, and size of penetrations through fire rated separations, to enable a suitably tested fire stopping system to be selected. Undertaking Passive Fire Design early on in the project allows for greater pricing clarity during the contractor tendering process.

Compliance Pathways

There are three possible compliance pathways for fire safety in New Zealand. Any one of them may be employed to demonstrate compliance with the New Zealand Building Code (NZBC), and as a Chartered Fire Engineer with Engineering NZ, LFE is qualified to make assessments along any one of the three pathways.

Acceptable Solution Pathway

Acceptable Solution Pathway

Steps already prescribed that, when followed, achieve compliance with the relevant fire clauses of the NZBC.

Verification Methods Pathway

Verification Methods Pathway

Adopts advanced fire/smoke modelling and egress analysis to show performance criteria for fire safety are achieved.

Alternative Solution Pathway

Alternative Solution Pathway

Either quantitative or qualitative solutions and approaches to fire safety.

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