Which documents must arrive with hotel furniture?

What arrives with a hotel furniture order is not only furniture: it is a file. Test reports, homologations or declarations of conformity, installation declarations. It is the part of the supply nobody looks at until the day somebody asks for it — and that day is always one of the tightest in the programme.

Why is the paperwork part of the supply rather than an attachment to it?

Because without it the furniture, as far as the fire safety file is concerned, does not exist.

Before a hotel opens, a fire safety notification is filed, and in it a qualified professional attests, among other things, the compliance of the products used in terms of reaction to fire. That statement is not made from memory: it is made on the documents of the products actually installed. If an armchair has no document, or has one that refers to a different combination of materials, that line cannot be signed.

This is where a paperwork problem becomes a time problem. A sofa delivered without its test report does not need replacing: it needs documenting. But documenting it afterwards means tracing the batch, the cover, the tested combination — and sometimes a new test. That is weeks, and they fall where the programme has none. We have written a separate guide on how that programme is counted backwards from the opening date.

Which documents must arrive, one by one?

Five things, and they are best requested in writing at order stage rather than on delivery.

The first is the document attesting the fire performance of the piece: depending on the product it is a homologation certificate with its number, or a manufacturer's declaration of conformity referring to the test report. Either way it must refer to that product and that combination of materials, not to a product family.

The second is the test report it rests on, or at least its details: laboratory, number, date, standard applied and description of the specimen tested. That is what allows anyone to check that the piece delivered is the piece tested.

The third is the list of items delivered with their references: code, cover, finish, batch. It is the most mundane document and the most often forgotten, and it is the one that holds all the others together — a certificate with no item to attach it to is of no use to anyone.

The fourth is the declaration of correct installation, wherever something is installed: it carries the model, type and make of the material, a description of its performance, the details of the declaration of performance, the manufacturer's details and the reaction to fire class.

The fifth is the maintenance and cleaning instructions: no part of the fire safety file, but they matter to the hotel, because a cover cleaned with the wrong product lasts half as long.

Who signs what?

Three different signatures, and they are not interchangeable.

The manufacturer declares the product: it carried out the test or obtained the homologation, and its declaration covers what it made.

Whoever installs declares the installation: that the product was fitted as intended, with the materials declared.

The appointed professional collects and attests: in the fire safety file the declaration on products used in terms of reaction and resistance to fire is submitted on a dedicated ministerial form, MOD. PIN 2.3-2012 — the one people call DICH.PROD — provided for by article 4 of the Italian decree of 7 August 2012. Resistance to fire of installed construction elements has its own separate form, MOD. PIN 2.2-2012, known as CERT.REI.

Nobody can sign in another's place: a supplier cannot declare an installation it did not carry out, a professional cannot attest a product whose document is missing. Which is why the file is built along the way, not at the end.

Italian class or Euroclass: why does the answer depend on what the piece is?

Because since 2023 the two worlds have parted, and this is what most often sends a specification off course.

For construction products the Italian classes can no longer be used: the decree of 14 October 2022 imposed classification through the European procedures of EN 13501-1 alone, with a six-month transition for production and placing on the market and twelve months for installation. From 28 October 2023, in premises subject to fire prevention control, a construction product in an Italian class is not installed.

For furnishing materials, the Italian tests remain: the same decree leaves them usable for the certification and homologation of materials that are not construction products, and the decree of 26 June 1984 still governs furnishings. Chairs and armchairs whose seat or back is of non-rigid material fall within its scope and are classified in class IM.

In practice: in one and the same specification, “Class 1” called for on a fixed element is now a requirement that cannot be met, while “Class 1 IM” called for on an armchair is exactly the right requirement. And because the line does not run between furniture and textiles but between what is a construction product and what is not, in a doubtful case the manufacturer's documentation governs, read together with the professional filing the file.

Why is a certificate for the fabric not enough?

Because the test is not about the fabric: it is about the assembly.

On an upholstered piece, fire performance comes out of the combination of cover, filling and frame. An approved fabric fitted over a filling other than the one tested produces an object about which nothing is known, and no document about the fabric fills that gap. It is why a serious supplier, asked to change the cover once a project is running, does not answer yes by return of post: it answers by saying whether that combination has already been tested.

There is one detail worth knowing, because it concerns details. On upholstered pieces, finishing materials may differ from the tested composites, and carry no certification of their own, only if they account for no more than ten per cent of the total surface of seat and back; beyond that they must be class 1. On an armchair with pronounced piping and stitching that threshold arrives sooner than you would think. We have written a dedicated guide on the relationship between fabric, assembly and class.

What changes if a document is missing on inspection day?

The opening date changes, and that is the only honest way to put it.

In a hotel contract the most valuable thing is time. A hotel that opens on the planned date starts invoicing on the planned date, and every week of delay is a week of unsold rooms that never comes back. Compliant, certified and delivered on schedule are not three separate requirements: they are one thing seen from three sides, and a missing document holds up the filing that allows the doors to open.

Which is why the file is asked for at order stage, with a line in the contract listing the documents expected and when they are due. It costs nothing to whoever writes it and a great deal to whoever forgets it.

An overview of how we work in the workshop and on site, and of what accompanies a contract supply, is on the Contract page; pieces come either from our collections or from the designer's drawing. For a live project, get in touch.

Frequently asked questions

Is the supplier obliged to hand over the certificates?

A supplier is answerable for what it declares about the product it made, and without that declaration the product cannot be used where fire performance is prescribed. The short route is contractual: the list of documents expected goes into the order.

Does a certificate last forever?

The document remains what it is, but it is valid for the combination of materials it describes: change the cover, the filling or the frame and it no longer describes the piece delivered. And the admissible classes have changed for construction products, where only the Euroclasses apply from 28 October 2023.

Who should these documents be given to?

To the client, who keeps them, and to the professional preparing the fire safety file, who uses them to complete the dedicated form. It is worth keeping a single file, ordered by room and by item.

Is one document enough for the whole supply?

No, and it would be suspicious. The summary declaration that goes into the file is one document, but it rests on the documents of the individual products, each referring to its own item and its own combination of materials.