Fire Rating High Risk Bathrooms

[Firewolf]

Hi Folks

I'm afraid this post is virtually identical to one I posted last week regarding providing fire resistance without AFD in a store cupboard.

This time we are talking bathrooms rather than store cupboards - specifically high risk bathrooms found in residential care homes or hospital environments which may contain motorised baths and / or hoists.

The question is would you ask for a fire door on a high risk bathroom?

Its the old chesnuit of if you provide fire resistance do you also need to provide detection because all FR does is essentially delay the time a fire or smoke would break through !

But not withstanding that would you actually ask for a fire door on a bathroom anyway?

Thanks again for your help! Im sorry to be so annoying!

[black arts]

HIGH RISK  bathrooms?? your having a laugh!!

If we apply the same process to all rooms i.e. all rooms with machines in
are high risk, we could not cope.
Your brigade (I believe is WMFS) have enough problems with their risk based inspection programs which is entirly out of kilter with the rest of the country
Only joking I sufer the same fate

[Martin Burford]

fire wolf.I know we are nearing the silly season.....but " High risk " bathrooms. you must be having a joke or you have entered into the spirit of the ridiculous season!
Conqueror.

[John Webb]

I cannot see anything in AD "B" about fitting bathrooms with FR doors. And Para 1.16 specifically says smoke detectors should not be placed in bathrooms because of the potential for false alarms.

[jokar]

BS 5588 requires fire doors on toilet facilities.

[Martin Burford]

jokar.rubbish!
Conqueror

[AnthonyB]

If you have a regime of PPM on the kit, regular PAT testing & visual inspection this would be a control measure reducing the ignition risk as low as reasonably practicable, combined with segregation of combustibles by having a towel cupboard then the risk of ignition & spread would be such that normal door & human detection/corridor AFD would suffice.

At least thats what following the stages in the entry guide would suggest!

[PhilB]

Oh dear, those of you that are poking fun at Firewolf for asking a sensible question are demonstrating something that concerns me greatly about the future of fire safety.
As he correctly points out, some bathrooms do contain a considerable fire load, if people go in them, or there is lighting or other electric appliances there is an ignition source.

I'm not suggesting that all bathrooms should be considered high risk, but equally don't automatically assume they pose no risk.

[Peter]

Years Ago! - One of the items that would attract a Fire door was a Gas single point water heater, the other was an airing cupboard or similar within the room. - I think Firewolf is correct in assessing the room and contents then making a judgement over how it affects the MOE.

[jokar]

Conqueror, thanks for the smart comment.  have a look at BS5588 Part 11 clause 9.2.2. a) iv.

[Paul]

The rational behind fire resisting doors for bathrooms is clear.  If you consider that some bathrooms, as Phil quite correctly points out, have a higher fire load than others, along with electrical equipment, such as bath lifts etc, then is clear there is a potential for fire occurrence within such a room.

Now if you were to leave the decision up to the building designers based upon risk assessment, given the set of circumstances above then most would say, don't bother its a bathroom.  And in the majority of circumstances they would be correct in their decision.

Now if we just say that all such doors must be fire resisting then this decision is removed from the risk assessment arena and as a belt and braces policy the area outside the bathroom is protected from the outbreak of fire within the room for the duration of the door criterion.  Some bathrooms are a clear candidate for such fire resisting doors, some are not.  If you make then all fire doors then no one is harmed eaither way.

Firewolf, quite ok to ask such a question the joke is on others who think this is rubbish.

[PhilB]

The problem here as I see it is that we are too used to sticking to guidance documents. The FSO of the future will need to make decisions based on common sense and professional judgement. Gone, thankfully are the days of making recommendations because the guide says so.

The code huggers amongst you are probably thinking of the home office guides when you say bathrooms don't need to be fire resisting. What those guides actually said was low risk WCs need not be FR they never mentioned bathrooms.

HTM84 would require bathrooms to be FR if they opened into a protected shaft. There are variations in other guides.

What I believe is more important for todays FSO is to understand why the guides made certain recommendations rather than just quoting what those recommendations were. It would appear from some of the earlier comments that some of us are less comptent to do this than others.

[Mark Newton]

Low risk wc? Been dealing with a care home, three storeys, largely timber construction. Extract fan mounted in the false ceiling of the wc caught fire. It was connected with plastic flexible hose to main service riser/vent, to which the fire spread.
Smoke coming out all over the place, major damage as the brigade had to smash through structural timber boards on all three floors to chase the fire/smoke.
Fortunately, daytime, so enough staff around to cope.

Whose FRA would have dealt with that, I wonder?
Or, come to that, whose Fire Cert inspection?

[TommyG]

All WC's need a FD30S if they are contained within a protected stair (plus a couple of extra ifs and buts) and don't forget that would walls would also have to be of 30 minute fire resistant construction, If it is a bathroom containing the kind of equipment you describe I would question whether it could be placed in a protected stair at all.

There wouldn't be a lot of point in fire resisting a room with no detection in it. you'd have no idea the building was on fire until products of combustion set off your SD in the corridoor.

Maybe install a rate of rise detector in the room and have on an overly high setting. Have a fire alarm panel perhaps that desensitises the detection during the day when it is likely to be used and makes itself more sensitive at night.

Install a timer delay on the detection that the operator could press before they start using the room and an hour later perhaps the detection switches itself back on.

That said I would imagine the equipment would only be on when it is being used and if it's being used you have a human link to raise the alarm. When the equipment isn't being used just have an isolation switch outside. Remove the electricity and remove the risk?

[Peter Wilkinson]

Let us also consider the potential users of the WC facilities.  Adolescents, the elderly and those suffering mental illness or learning difficulty may pose a greater risk as the relative privacy of a toilet is an ideal place to surreptitiously smoke, or to maliciously start a fire.