Boiler House Doors

[Wiz]

Comments on the following please;

A part of a school includes the entrance door to a classroom via a small lobby, and about 3m away the entrance to the school's boiler house. Both these doors are external to the building.
The classroom door lobby is then made bigger and now encompasses the entrance door to the boiler house. Additional venting from the bolier house to the outside air is provided.The doors to the boiler house still have their original vent louvres fitted.

We now have the situation where the only exit from the classroom is through the lobby that now contains the louvred-vent doors to the boiler house.

I am but a simple fire alarm engineer but this arrangement seems potentially dangerous to me. What do you think? Are there any rules about the fire resistance of a boiler house compartment?

[Davo]

Dr Wiz

Are you saying there is no direct fresh air into and extracted out of the boilerhouse?
What about products of combustion?


For info for all, went on a seminar in Harrogate last month, one of the speakers was from the new Gas Registration body. He showed us a photo of a pair of boilerhouse doors from a school, each louvred.

He then showed us the inside

The school caretaker (yes) was living there, had boarded the door up on the inside and fitted shelving, coat rack etc. ( I believe his missis had chucked him out a few weeks prior)

 

davo

[nearlythere]

Not a good arrangement Wiz. The lobby, if it contains the only door to the classroom, should be protected from any risk from the boiler room and the door should be 1/2fr sc ss at least.

[Wiz]

Dr Wiz

Are you saying there is no direct fresh air into and extracted out of the boilerhouse?
What about products of combustion? ...........

davo

davo, fresh air in and out by new vents put in outside wall. But original boiler house door still has vent louvre built in to it, and now this door opens into lobby to classroom!

[The Colonel]

Wiz

I agree with Nearlythere, the door to the boiler room needs at least 30 min FR to protect what appears to be the only way out of that classroom. Great that they have thought about the air flow into the boiler room but what about the childrens means of escape. Good job that you have picked this up, it doesnt seem to sit well with you which is correct and I suggest that you raise your concerns with the person responsible at the school asap.

[kurnal]

The school caretaker (yes) was living there, had boarded the door up on the inside and fitted shelving, coat rack etc. ( I believe his missis had chucked him out a few weeks prior)
davo

Never mind the doors Davo tell us about his missus.

Yes Dr Wiz you are right as the boiler room now opens onto the only escape route from the class room, and as boiler rooms are always considered as rooms of high risk in every fire safety guide ever written and indeed a place of special fire hazard according to Approved Doc B the convention would be to fit a fire resisting door to the boiler room. If an application for Building Regs approval had been made prior to the alteration this would have been a requirement.

[Wiz]

On another thread the erstwhile Professor K directed me to a document known as BB100 that includes a relevant element to this question. I found BB100 by Googling for it.

This document includes the following text.

Boilers should not be accessed from inside a building or extension of more than 250sqm and any access door should be a minimum of 5m away from a school entrance/exit

The above text was highlighted in bold type in the document so I assume it is considered as important.

The document does not state where this recommendation/regulation originally comes from.

In fact, I cannot ascertain what authority the BB100 document has for promoting any of the recommendations that it contains (apart from those in which it includes a reference to a BS or similar document. And there are very few of those)

Can anyone explain the origination and purpose of BB100 and if it has any authority?

[nearlythere]

It is the Dept of Ed's own fire safety guidance which replaced BB7 a few years ago. It is a guide just like most others.

[Wiz]

Nearlythere, in your opinion how much of a 'guide' can be ignored?

I appreciate guides that point you in the direction of the correct legislation and authorative recommendations.

I am wary of guides that include advice that really is only an opinion and without making it clear that it is only an opinion. The trouble is that some people take these opinions as gospel legal requirements/authorative recommendations and follow it. Then they tell other people about it and before you know it, it has become some sort of 'accepted practice' where it never had to be.

[nearlythere]

A guide which is produced as a standard for the design of new and redevelopement of buildings is difficult to apply to exist buildings especially when you try to use it for a Fire Risk Assessments. Yes you are correct that at times guides are used too strictly and they become a bench mark, but it is very difficult to ignore some specific guidance.

In you scenario if the boiler room door is with 5M of the final exit it may be near impossible to recitify without demolition and rebuild. This would not be the expected course of action just to comply with a guide when a fire risk assessment could provide an alternative and acceptable solution.

When I was a FSO I used BB7 & BB100 as the proposed design assessment standard because there was nothing else specific to schools.

[Phoenix]

First there was BB7, then the guidance was absorbed into the 2000 iteration of ADB then, at the 2006 iteration of ADB, BB100 emerged as the official fire safety guidance for the design of schools.  ADB directs readers to BB100 for guidance on schools.  BB100 carries as much weight as ADB.  Compliance with BB100 tends to indicate that a building will be satisfactory, deviation from its guidance should always be supported by rigorous analysis that demonstrates that functional requirements are met.

Stu

[nearlythere]

First there was BB7, then the guidance was absorbed into the 2000 iteration of ADB then, at the 2006 iteration of ADB, BB100 emerged as the official fire safety guidance for the design of schools.  ADB directs readers to BB100 for guidance on schools.  BB100 carries as much weight as ADB.  Compliance with BB100 tends to indicate that a building will be satisfactory, deviation from its guidance should always be supported by rigorous analysis that demonstrates that functional requirements are met.

Stu

And in between BB7 & BB100 whilst using BC guidance there was no prohibition of dead ends in new schools.

[Phoenix]

And in between BB7 & BB100 whilst using BC guidance there was no prohibition of dead ends in new schools.

The wilderness years...