lobbies to 4 storey hotels

[kurnal]

Just to add to and clarify a few points earlier.

The lobbies that I hate are those created by taking a piece out of a room to create a lobby on each room and totally destroying a lovely old building - and achieving nothing but compliance on paper with the guidance.

I aggree with Wee B  and CivvyFSO re there being little benefit in a 1 hour door except that it makes a positive statement of intent otherwise someone could offer to upgrade a 25mm door using intumescent products and you probably could not argue with that- but for the hour it has to be a new doorset, it has to be a good fit and in my experience the average chippy takes a bit more care installing these.  

Civvy FSO yes you're right that the risk should be reduced in all hotel rooms ALARP, but remember that the official definition of this includes consideration of difficulty, disruption and cost- and so where the passive protection falls short it is reasonable to take additional time, trouble and expense to compensate. Things like Care home standard bedding and furnishings, RCD on all  the electrics, TVs that cannot be left on standby, no trouser presses, boil dry safe kettles,

And as for conq.s comments- whatever happened to the Bull**** and Persuasion Act 1854? The old timers were experts on that one.

Should brigades have  policy on this sort of thing- I dont necessarily think so .That takes us back to the days of prescription. I would say if it falls below guidance standard the FSO is empowered to make a judgement based on the risk assessment which will be different in every case. If you dont like it serve a notice, the RP can appeal and each case will be properly heard on its merits.

[wee brian]

This is all assuming that a 30 minute door will last 30 minutes in a true fire scenario, which tends not to be the case as the test conditions under BS476 are not really the same as the destructive power of a fully involved room.

Youve been watching too many training films mate - If you can get a hotel bedroom to burn like a Furnace i'd like to see it!

[bolt]

The old ceilings will be through in 20 min way before the doors give out. But anyway this opens up a real can of worms once you start attacking building defiances. This country is packed full of +100 year old buildings from National Trust, Heritage, Hotels, including boarding Schools, colleges and universities that have dorms that open out to single staircase with no lobbies. Over the years I think many of these places have done a good job and spent fortunes upgrading fire alarms systems from the old gent bell to modern L1/2 systems. I know I done quite a few myself that have a myriad of stuff including beam detectors, laser aspiration in ducts and ceilings, IR/UV flame detectors and touch wood none of them had suffered any ill fate.  They are pretty much on the ball with risk assessments.  These places just won’t upgrade and fit lobbies I think National Trust and the like would take it to the European courts first rather then destroy the building fabric!  

In the meantime they are still hundreds of places that still do nothing towards the RRO, are fairly modern could comply but don’t want to/don’t care and will sit it out and wait for someone to go round first. I’m sure you could pop into any ropey looking flats in our cities over 3 stories and find plenty to find fault with them instead would be a good start. Even the local councils have barely got to grips with HMO's and various reports show it will take many more years just to bring these into line.

[Bill G]

To follow up on a couple of points made -

From Kurnal "Should brigades have  policy on this sort of thing- I dont necessarily think so .That takes us back to the days of prescription. I would say if it falls below guidance standard the FSO is empowered to make a judgement based on the risk assessment which will be different in every case".
I would agree that it is difficult for FA's to give definitive guidance and this does lead by default to perscription. But I would argue that it would be reasonable for guidance to given on a range of equilivant solutions that would be acceptable to a FA. For a FA to offer absolutly no guidance  other that do what we say and it you dont like it appeal is not  satisfactory in my opinion. At some stage either the occupier, possibly via an appeal or a consultant will come back to us and offer some solutions and we will have to make a judgemnt then.All we are doing is delaying the discussion or hoping that they blindly put in the lobbies into the rooms ( and thereby rendering the rooms unusable)
Perhaps what I am seeking is a discussion document on the various alternatives as to what would be a resaonable alternative to a lobby.

Regarding twsutton - yes I would consider an engineer solution

[wee brian]

I think a lot of this relates back to a fundamental flaw in the RRO guides. They dont really help you through the Risk Assessment process.

Most of the guidance on means of escape is just a repeat of what was in the building regs/BS standard of a few years back. It doesn't help with the realities of FRA in exisitng buildings. Consideration of difficulty, disruption and cost is a fact of life and the guides completely miss this very important point.

[Tom Sutton]

I am trying to understand the modern concept of fire risk assessment so please bear with me.

It appears that double door protection and AFD is acceptable but a one hour door with AFD is not or at least there seems to be some doubt about it.

a) In both solutions it will take one hour for a fire to penetrate into the staircase enclosure. No difference.

b) Products of combustion entering the staircase enclosure.

Two points to note, the first all rooms have a smoke reservoir from the top of the door to the ceiling level. The second point is the AFD will initiate the evacuation in the early stages of a fire.

With the first solution, assuming the lobby is large enough, it could act as an air lock with little or no smoke will entering the staircase enclosure.

With the second solution considering the smoke reservoir, the fire being in its initial stages and in most situations two people being allocated a room, no more than 10 seconds to pass through the door, then I would think only a small amount of smoke would enter the staircase enclosure and certainly not enough to make it impassable.

The ground floor could be a problem, but would it be necessary for the occupants to pass through the staircase enclosure to reach a place of ultimate safety?

I believe this could be backed up with calculations but I am not certain.

My question why cannot the second solution be acceptable to most?

[kurnal]

With the second solution considering the smoke reservoir, the fire being in its initial stages and in most situations two people being allocated a room, no more than 10 seconds to pass through the door, then I would think only a small amount of smoke would enter the staircase enclosure and certainly not enough to make it impassable.

The ground floor could be a problem, but would it be necessary for the occupants to pass through the staircase enclosure to reach a place of ultimate safety?
I believe this could be backed up with calculations but I am not certain.

My question why cannot the second solution be acceptable to most?

You have got it in one TW. Do the calcs and if they support the argument - problem solved. No one can argue with that. The guides are just for people who dont want to use other techniques to prove the building is safe.

[wee brian]

Its not risk assessment you dont understand - its the laws of physics captain.

1 - Periods of fire resistance are not the same as real time.

2 - Lobbies do more than just act as an "air lock". To be honest this has never been properly investigated. But the principle is that two doors provide a break in the pressure distribution. this reduces the risk of smoke penetrating the stair enclosure.

3 - If doubling the fire resistance was the same as providing a lobby we would have done away with lobbies years ago.

In this case there is only one door and not enough space to fit the next one in having identified this "deficiency" in the premises we must consider what impact this has on fire risk.   In my view the impact is that the stair will fill with smoke a bit quicker than it would do if we had a lobby. Its almost impossible to work out how quickly. Some people will offer a CFD model but they are not very good at modelling closed doors.  

In my view upgrading from heat detectors in the bedrooms to smoke detectors would give earlier warning which would adress the shorter available egress time.

Kurnal suggests that we could also go the extra mile in reducing ignition/fuel sources in the rooms. This isnt a bad idea.

You could go for pressurisation but this would be a nightmare and, in my view, an unreasonably onerous solution given the small increase in risk

[Bill G]

Regarding the smoke reservoir - I presume we are talking about two specifc areas - ie the height of the room of origin , in many old turn of the centuary houses the depth of the ceiling can be up to 1 metre. Secondly the reservoir created by the staircase enclose itself. In this situation the reservoir would as expected be at the top level(4th floor). The level where the occupants are at most risk. In order to relive this reserviour would it not be reasonable to provide an openable vent at this level ( connected to the FA). I must also say that I am develping a bit of a bee in my bonnet that AOV's can play a part in the solution or is venting a red herring.

[wee brian]

If you open a vent at the head of the stair you will drop the air pressure in the stair thus drawing more smoke into it. This is a bad thing.

[nearlythere]

If the hotel with single door and AFD was "Certified" by FRS then why are they asking for an upgrade? A Fire Certificate if issued is not renewable unless there has been a change of condition which effects the existing means of escape.
Was an actual Fire Certificate issued in respect of the premises?

[Tom Sutton]

Its not risk assessment you dont understand - its the laws of physics captain.

1 - Periods of fire resistance are not the same as real time.

2 - Lobbies do more than just act as an "air lock". To be honest this has never been properly investigated. But the principle is that two doors provide a break in the pressure distribution. this reduces the risk of smoke penetrating the stair enclosure.

3 - If doubling the fire resistance was the same as providing a lobby we would have done away with lobbies years ago.

I agree with you wb I do not understand either fully.

1. I agree, in my experience it is likely to be longer. But the fire resistance did not concern me I would have said half hour would be satisfactory.

2. As you said "To be honest this has never been properly investigated" that’s the problem.

3. When doubled door protection was first introduced for small buildings we did not require AFD. When active measures became more acceptable and AFD started to be installed maybe we should have done away with it.

As I asked, do you think the staircase would become impassable in the second solution trapping occupants.

[AnthonyB]

If the hotel with single door and AFD was "Certified" by FRS then why are they asking for an upgrade? A Fire Certificate if issued is not renewable unless there has been a change of condition which effects the existing means of escape.
Was an actual Fire Certificate issued in respect of the premises?

But the RRO as part of its working has made any past certification irrelevant by removal of the FP Act & everything under it. So the FRS must look at a premises in the current light of day and assess if, using current standards, a reasonably practical solution is being used to give adequate MoE, warning, etc where neccessary.

Obviously in their opinion the FRS feel the use of a solution under old codes does not afford the neccessary level of safety to meet the requirements of the order, hence the need to look again - what went before doesn't have much bearing if it isn't effective

[nearlythere]

But the hotel was certified within the last two years. Has quidance changed significantly since then? Unless there has been a significant change to guidance since issue of the fire cert then the only extra area which should be looked at for a risk assessment would be the fire safety measures due to the processes taking place in the hotel. eg kitchen. Has anything happened to render the MOE, certificed within the last two years as adequate, inadequate?
If a risk assessment of the means of escape is made using the same guidance as was used for the MOE Certificate then surely they will be the same or very similar, depending on interpretation?

[jokar]

The differnec is the FRS don't deal with risk and do not understand it. They have no Fire Safety Duties under RR(FS)O and therefore have resorted to bullying tactics to make decisions based on guidance which they claim is prescriptive.  Existing premises cannot meet modern building standards in a number of cases and therefore the risk in the building has to be assessed against the guidance documents standards.  The CLG documents are not design guides and therefore are open to interpretation.  The law is not open to interpretation but a number of FRS are attempting to do this and hopefully they will fail.