Vision Panels

[zimmy]

I've never understood how it could be accepted that a 0.1m piece of glass in a door or wall could be considered sufficient to noitice a fire in an access room. Chances are the occupant doesnt spend his working life gazing through it, or he hangs his coat or pirelli calender over it. I'm happy with the reduction in the height of the walls - so its not really a room at all, and i'm happy with AFD in the access room. At last I thought, a wholescale review of ADB, but guess what, there it is again! is it me?

[wee brian]

Did you make this comment in response to the consultation?

[zimmy]

Wasnt my remit as i'm only a minion in the grand plan, but i was sort of hoping....

[wee brian]

It was a public consultation - I think that includes you.

[zimmy]

fair point, but I still cant believe that the eminant experts who included this option seriously think it acceptable. I'll find it hard to accept in a risk assessment.

[wee brian]

I agree. The VP should be appropriate to the location of the room and what you can realisticaly see through it.

If you take a closer look at ADB it says

a suitably sited vision panel not less than
0.1m2 should be located in the door or
walls of the inner room, to enable occupants
of the inner room to see if a fire has
started in the outer room,

What this means is that it shouldbe no smaller than 0.1. But it may need to be larger "to enable occupants" to see a fire. Iguess that's why the "Experts" haven't changed it.

[skwdenyer]

I'm happy with the reduction in the height of the walls - so its not really a room at all,

Can I just clarify something, as a lay person? Can the gap between the top of the walls in such a case and the ceiling (the 500mm minimum) be glazed and still comply with this provision, or must it be free air?

Extending this a little further, when is a room not a room? If, for instance, I have an area screened with floor to (almost) ceiling screens, with no door, is this a room? If so, when does the distinction actually arise?

Many thanks!

[zimmy]

I would suggest that having a free air gap of 500mm would allow the occupant to be alerted not only by sight, but also by smell and sound, hopefully giving an impression that 'somethings not right out there'. Therefore, to glaze the gap would defeat the object. AFD is the best option but I would prefer to rely on the best detector of all, the occupier of the access room. Therefore the nature of the activity in the access room plays a large part in deciding the protection of the inner room.

When is a room not a room? does it matter? as long as matey in the relevant 'space' has suitable warning of an incident you can call it what you like.

[TallyHo]

The occupant of the room could quite easily have their back to the vison panel, or even have 40 winks during their lunch hour.

I would always recommed AFD, even if it was a stand alone battery powered SD.

[messy]

I cannot always understand the anxiety over VPs/inner rooms etc etc. I appreciate that inner rooms with potentially long TDs and perhaps high fire loading in the access room are one matter, but what about the 'low risk' inner room? Why does they appear to get the same protection?

Consider a medium size office block of say 2/3 floors.

AFD is to a 'M' category and doors from each corridor to all offices have no VPs and are kept closed. The corridor may or may not be protected and the TDs are smallish

Not one occupant within any office can see the corridor and are relying on someone else to sound the alarm (break glass). There are 1000s of offices across the UK that fit this description and are deemed acceptable

A decision is made to construct an inner room. The access room is always occupied and in any case has a low fire loading such as a reception. Suddenly all hell lets loose. VP, AFD or gaps at the top of the partition wall are suddenly deemed as necessary.

Surely if the FRA had found the fire loading is low, TDs are small and the risk is low, why bother with any extra measures?

I have been, frankly embarrassed in the past when accompanying colleagues on visits who make such a fuss when they find a punter has hung a jacket over a VP in an otherwise reasonable premises, and make us ( the inspecting Officers) look bloody ridiculous jobsworths (leave it Colin!!)

Am I missing something here? (again, I stress I am talking of small,  low risk situations where perhaps common sense should be applied)

[skwdenyer]

When is a room not a room? does it matter? as long as matey in the relevant 'space' has suitable warning of an incident you can call it what you like.

As far as I can see, yes, it does matter. If it is a "room" then it is an "inner room", and that - as messey points out - is the regulatory crux of the matter. For instance, if a room is not a room if it has no door, then that allows sub-division of spaces quite flexibly. Or is there some definition, such as "if more than 50% of the space between areas is occluded by a wall, screen, or other partition then it is a room"?

I agree about AFD in the access room, that isn't the issue. The issue is, however, relevant if an arrangement of partitions, etc. might be deemed to create an "inner, inner room" which doesn't seem allowable.

Consider the following examples:

Code: [Select]

  Case 1        Case 2        case 3        Case 4

|-----/-----| |-----/-----| |-----/-----| |-----/-----|
|           | |           | |           | |           |
|           | |           | |           | |           |
|           | |           | |           | |           |
|-----/-----| |---     ---| |----- -----| |---     ---|
|           | |           | |           | |  -------  |
|           | |           | |           | |           |
|           | |           | |           | |           |
|-----------| |-----------| |-----------| |-----------|

"-" or "|" = wall, "/" = doorClearly Case 1 is an inner room, but what about the other cases?

[Ken Taylor]

I must admit to having had a few doors permanently removed in my time to get round the problem of unacceptable inner room situations - including rooms off rooms off rooms.

[skwdenyer]

Ken, thanks for that. So can I infer from your comments that, in my example, cases 2-4 are not inner rooms, and that the existence of a door is the primary characteristic defining a "room"? At the risk of abusing your helpfulness still further, do you know of anything I can point to, regulation-wise, from which this can also be reasonably inferred?

Of course I could just argue that, since Diagram 17 of Approved Document B shows an inner room as having a door, the absence of the door removes the definition of an inner room? I'd have thought that was logically dubious, but am happy if in practice this is what is accepted:-)

[steve walker]

I go along with Zimmy here.

Let's not get hung up on the definition of a room. There is more on inner rooms in the post with that title.

[skwdenyer]

Steve, the pragmatic approach definitely seems to have some merit. However - and please forgive me if (a) I haven't understood all of the issues here, and (b) seem to be labouring the point - the question "when is a room a room" seems applicable to a wide range of problems. Ken's response seems to suggest a door-based assessment and some "established practice" here. I've looked at the other thread.

It may well be that a FRA-based approach to inspection removes some of the blanket "inner, inner room? just say no!" reactions, but I can't help feeling that there will be a presumption that an FRA ought to be at least based upon, or reflective of, the "established practice" that has gone before. If an FRA ever goes to court, I suspect (with some legal knowledge, but less FRA knowledge) that wording would be important. So, for instance, if one considered "Room X" in the FRA (which would be an inner, inner room), opposing counsel would almost certainly seize upon this as "a room" because the FRA says it is, and then argue based on previous pracitce based on "inner, inner rooms". Conversely if one called it "Sub-area 3 of Room Y" then one might very well be asked to justify the decision not to call / classify it as a room. As we all know, courts aren't always rational, and the case could end up hinging on this, even if it were ultimately irrelevant to the question of whether means of escape, AFD, etc. were actually appropriate to the risk.

Therefore I suppose what I'm really getting at is, in current established practice, how is the distinction made? I'm not trying to argue the merits of one approach to risk assessment or warning over another, I'm just trying to establish what the current understanding of the term "room" really is, since I don't seem to have been able to find a specific definition.

Thank you, all, for your patience here!