Existing places of entertainment and buiding regulations

[ellel]

I have just been appointed Fire Officer for my organisation. Experience Nil, Knowledge Nil. I have however gleaned some info from this site and others. However,  I have tried to find “ Existing places of entertainment and the building regulations” documents with out success, where are they? Also I have tried to work out the maximum capacity for our meeting rooms the calculations part of this web site is great but what do  Buildings class A, B and C refer to.

[wee brian]

ellel

Building Regulations apply ony to the process of building (and some other stuff)

If you havent got any building work going on then the building regs don't apply. The Fire Regs of course do still apply.

There are many ways of working out the capacity of your meeting rooms the easiest thing to find on the web is approved document B. It is the book of words used to design buildings in accordance with the building regs. So whilst these regs don not apply the guidance that supports them can still be used to answer your question.

http://www.odpm.gov.uk/stellent/groups/odpm_buildreg/documents/divisionhomepage/br0043.hcsp

[colin todd]

The classes are defined in the yellow book.

[Ian Scrim]

The "Guide to Fire Precautions in Existing Places of Entertainment and Like Premises" ISBN: 0113409079 commonly called the yellow guide is currently out of print but the following website

http://www.firesafe.org.uk/html/guides/basicmoe.htm

gives,
(note this refers to licensed premises and also there are other ways of looking at evacuation times)  

Time of evacuation is dependent on on the following factors;
Building construction
Occupancy

The construction of buildings are divided into three basic types,
Class A - complete noncombustible construction, i.e. elements of structure, floors, and walls. Supporting structure of brick or concrete;
Class B - traditional construction, i.e. noncombustible walls with combustible floors;
Class C - combustible construction, i.e. timber floors and walls.

Based on these classes arbitrary evacuation times were decided upon and the times that are generally accepted as -;
Class 'A' construction - 3 minutes
Class 'B' construction - 2.5 minutes
Class 'C' construction - 2 minutes

These are not hard and fast times, and can be extended or reduced according to the particular circumstances

[dave bev]

scrimmy - you know some stuff, dont you!!! LOL

dave bev

[Tom Sutton]

ellel

try   http://www.south-ribblebc.gov.uk/pdfs/Fire%20Authority.pdf    you may find it useful

Tom

[Fishy]

Ellel:

My advice - demand appropriate fire safety training from your employer - in my view it isn't reasonable for them to saddle you with fire safety responsibility for a place of entertainment without it.  

They have a legal responsibility to ensure that you are competent and "experience nil, knowledge nil" doesn't inspire confidence that this is the case!