Description

On 27 June 2019, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) published the new C/AS2 (Acceptable Solution for Buildings other than Risk Group SH) for fire.

The document combines what were previously six separate Acceptable Solutions for fire into one.

Although every attempt was made to ensure the new document was correct, some unintentional errors occurred. The Building System Performance branch is planning to address these issues in the next biannual Building Code update, which will go out for public consultation in February 2020.

In the interim, three priority corrections will be made immediately to C/AS2 to coincide with the end of the transition period (31 October 2019). 

Scope

The three priority corrections are:

1. Within the scope for risk group WB, under 'Storage activities such as', a typo was made including the word 'no' (see the corrections as per the red mark-ups below). Refer to page 34 in 2019 C/AS2, Table 1.1 WB.
2. Re-inserting the requirement for a Type 9 in Table 2.2b for buildings in risk group CA with an occupant load between 251 and 1000 people, and an escape height between 4 and 10 metres. Refer to page 43 in 2019 C/AS2.
3. Amending Table 2.2c to allow for the substitution of a Type 3 with additional smoke detectors where the environment might be too challenging for a Type 4. With the development of the new table in the 2019 C/AS2, key footnotes were erroneously left out. Where the occupant load is 100 to 250 and 251 to 1000, and the escape height is between 0 and <4 metres (four fields altogether), footnote 4 should be added to allow for this substitution. Each of the four boxes should read: 4^4,5,6, 18⁷. Refer to page 44 in 2019 C/AS2.