Who are Summit Environmental Limited?
Summit Environmental is a Sussex based consultancy, with offices in Sussex and London. Summit Environmental are experts in the provision of Asbestos, Fire, Legionella and Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) and specialise in hazardous materials sampling, testing, and consultancy services.
Why choose Summit Environmental?
We are practical, talk in plain language, focus on client’s individual needs and through our previous experience provide solutions to our client’s issues.
By working with us, we will help you make sense of the regulations, improve the safety performance of your business, and keep you compliant. Our aim is to provide excellent customer service that exceeds your expectations whilst providing cost-effective solutions.
Services offered by Summit Environmental.
When buying or selling both residential and commercial premises you will normally need an Energy Performance Certificate, Fire Risk Assessment, Asbestos Management survey or Legionella Risk Assessment. Summit Environmental are your ‘one stop shop’ in the provision of Asbestos, Fire, Legionella and Energy Performance.
Risk management of hazardous materials such as asbestos and lead starts with sampling and testing of potentially suspect materials. Once identified, control measures can be implemented to ensure that the hazards the materials pose are minimised within buildings, vessels, land, and the environment they are present in.
Risk posed by fires in residential and commercial premises are all too well documented. Whether you need a Fire Risk Assessment, advice on Fire Safety Legislation, remediation of Fire Hazards or Control Measures following hazard identification, we can be your go to consultant. Our services include Fire Risk Assessments, Fire Alarms, Fire Stopping, Fire Exit Signage and Emergency Lighting, Fire extinguishers and Training.
We have over 12 years’ experience providing a comprehensive approach to asbestos and hazardous material identification, management, and remediation management. We provide a highly professional approach and cost-effective solutions to asbestos and hazardous material consultancy, asbestos, Fire, energy, building compliance, and risk management.
Identification of hazardous materials and issues within buildings, vessels, land, and the environment allow long term management or safe systems of work to be employed which lowers the risks. Our services include the following:
Asbestos
If you need to improve your asbestos compliance, we can review your current position, provide independent and impartial advice based upon your specific needs.
Whether you need a single point sample and analysis (bulk sample), full survey, or an asbestos management plan our asbestos services offered include:
- Asbestos Management Surveys for those needing to comply with the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012
- Asbestos Refurbishment Surveys for those planning major refurbishment works
- Asbestos Demolition Surveys for anyone looking to demolish and redevelop historic premises. We can complete a full range of asbestos management and abatement options to suit your requirements.
- Asbestos Re-inspection surveys. If existing asbestos containing materials are in good condition and are not likely to be damaged, they may be left in place, their condition monitored and managed to ensure they are not disturbed.
- Asbestos Management Plans – An Asbestos survey report is not an Asbestos Management Plan. The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 require every non-domestic property to have an Asbestos Management Plan. This document is intended to explain how the person responsible for the building, the Duty Holder, intends to manage the asbestos present to prevent persons being exposed to the asbestos.
Hazardous Materials Testing
- Lead Testing
Do you need lead testing or lead assessments?
Lead paint surveys & analysis are crucially important for those involved in refurbishment or renovation, particularly in period properties.
Your body absorbs lead when you:
- breathe in lead dust fumes or vapour,
- swallow any lead for example if you eat, drink, smoke or even bite you nails, without washing your hands and face.
We can undertake the identification and sampling for lead and other hazardous compounds within materials. Samples taken can be tested for Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’S), TBT’s, Inorganic Compounds and Heavy Metals.
- Anthrax Testing
Are you working in buildings where lathe plaster may be disturbed? Do you need anthrax testing or assessments? We can assess and advise on Anthrax in buildings and land.
Historic plaster such as lathe plaster, is a lime-based plaster reinforced with animal hair, usually from horses, cows, goats, or oxen. With lathe plaster there is a risk, that animal hair incorporated into plaster mixes before about 1900 could be contaminated with anthrax.
During refurbishment of historic properties which contain lathe plaster, there is a serious risk that the plaster being disturbed might contain and release anthrax into the air, remain in the dust or transferred to soils.
Deleterious Materials
What are Deleterious Materials?
Deleterious materials are materials or building techniques which are dangerous to health, environmentally unfriendly, those which tend to fail in practice or can be susceptible to change over the lifetime of the material.
Deleterious materials can be those such as silica dust, Refractory Ceramic Fibres (RCF’s) including Cristobalite and suspended composite panels.
We can offer advice and consultancy on a range of deleterious materials in construction.
Marine Services
The Inventory of Hazardous Materials (IHM’s) was introduced in the 2009 Hong Kong Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships.
The Convention is aimed at ensuring that ships, when being recycled after reaching the end of their operational lives, do not pose any unnecessary risks to human health, safety or to the environment.
The Hong Kong Convention intends to address all the issues around ship recycling, including the fact that ships sold for scrapping may contain environmentally hazardous substances such as asbestos, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, ozone-depleting substances, other liquids and microbiological contaminants.
We can help you minimise risk, potential liabilities, and enhance the safety of your ships’ crews by identifying, recording, and controlling hazardous materials onboard your ships with our range of Inventories of hazardous materials and ship recycling plans.
Energy Performance Certificates (EPC)
Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES)
In April 2016, The Energy Efficiency (Private Rented Property) Regulations 2015 brought into force Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) in the residential and commercial Private Rented Sector (PRS). These standards apply to properties in England and Wales.
Landlords must act to ensure that their housing stock is up to the required standards, especially in the case of commercial properties where change can take significantly longer to action.
From April 2018, domestic and non-domestic private rented properties which have an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating below an ‘E’ will require some energy efficiency improvements. Should Landlords fail to comply, they could face some heavy financial penalties. Landlords and their agents if unsure of where they stand should start by commissioning an up-to-date Energy Performance Certificate which will identify the current rating (which may have changed over time), and recommend opportunities for improvement.
Summit Environmental can offer you a range of EPC’s regardless of your needs, please contact us for advice on
- Non Domestic – Non-Domestic ‘As Designed’ EPC – Part L2A
- Non Domestic EPC Non-Domestic ‘As Designed’ EPC – Part L2A
- Domestic – Domestic ‘As Designed’ EPC – Part L1A
- Domestic – Domestic ‘As Built’ EPC – Part L1B
- Green Deals advice and consultancy
Floor Plans
The Floor Plan is a document that the estate agent, block management company, facilities management company or school will normally required for ease of orientation and safe management of staff and visitors.
Estate agents include floorplans with the selling particulars. It will show the layout of the home and commercial premises that they are marketing, and the relationship between various parts of the property, it will show door openings, window openings, and approximate measurements. As a perspective purchaser this source of information can be invaluable. Photographic evidence can be great, but sometimes not so easy to follow. With an examination of the Floor Plan you may quickly identify if the property that you are interested in will be suitable for all the members of your family, with the varying needs of certain age groups, and room adjacency’s.
Once we have completed your floorplan, we can overlay any number of layers with useful information:
- Floor Plans for Fire Escape routes and Fire Safety. Where are the fire extinguishers? Fire alarm cable routes schematics.
- Asbestos information. Which areas have contamination?
- Water ingress and dilapidations works. Which areas are to be stripped out?
- Legionella issues? Where are the pipework locations or flow and return?
- Unique room locations or unique identifiers.
- Floor Plans for sale or lease of properties. Such as an estate agent or property broker.
Fire
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires the Responsible Person (RP) of any non-domestic premises to carry out a fire risk assessment.
A fire risk assessment is an organized and methodical look at the premises, the activities carried on there and the likelihood that a fire could start and cause harm to those in and around the premises. Our team of accredited fire risk assessors work on properties of all sizes, from HMOs to large corporate blocks.
Where required we can also draw up a schedule of remedial works and recommend installation of any equipment that is required, from fire extinguishers, fire alarm checks and ensuring and maintaining full compliance.
Need a fire risk assessment?
Our risk assessments….
- Identify all potential fire hazards.
- Identify possible causes of ignition.
- Potential sources of fuel such as combustibles and unsafe situations, such as unsafe procedures, acts or conditions
- Take account of the vulnerable, including the elderly, children, people with disabilities.
- Identify specialist equipment such as fire appliances, evac chairs, appropriate storage facilities and signage.
- Check doors, locks, access, and escape routes.
- Identifying bad housekeeping
- Draw up emergency fire evacuation plans.
- Provide information for employees and other people on premises.
EWS1 and Combustibility Testing
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), The Building Societies Association (BSA), and UK Finance have agreed a new industry-wide valuation process which will help people buy and sell homes and re-mortgage in buildings above 18 metres (six storeys). Developments in material technology, changing design tastes, cost factors and specialisation of production have resulted in a situation where external walls are made up of many different components, manufactured and installed by multiple different parties.
In January 2020 the Governments expert advisory panel issued consolidated guidance ‘Advice for Building Owners of Multi-storey, Multi-occupied Residential Buildings’. In support of the Building Safety Programme, the Independent Expert Advisory Panel has issued advice on the measures building owners should take to review ACM and other cladding systems to assess and assure their fire safety, and the potential risks to residents of external fire spread.
The EWS1 form and process helps banks ‘make lending decisions on high rise properties with a potential fire risk.
The form, introduced last December, came from collaborations between UK Finance, the Building Societies Association (BSA) and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), to ‘create a standardised process that would make it easier for brokers and homeowners to find suitable mortgages. Lenders may refuse a mortgage application where one cannot be produced – this is a commercial decision.
We are able to undertake combustibility testing and assessments for hazardous external cladding or cladding that is deemed likely to assist fire spread through external wall systems. Whether you need an EWS1, Combustibility testing, cladding remediation we are the one stop consultants that can assist.
