Irish bar

[col10]

BS 9999 in 17.3.3 says 30 people in bars, "if the occupants require assistance to escape."

[nearlythere]

BS 9999 in 17.3.3 says 30 people in bars, "if the occupants require assistance to escape."

Well that would only apply to Irish bars then.

[K Lard]

This figure of 60 seems to be a magic number:
You can have an inner room with 60 persons;
You can have one escape route with 60 persons;
You can have inward opening doors with 60 persons.
60 safe, 61 unsafe?
Where's the evidence? Fire Authorities collect stats on detection and sprinklers not much else.
If the fire was confined to room of origin why not record if a fire door was fitted for instance?

[kurnal]

It's an arbitrary figure that has stood the test of time..... Fire safety is full of similarly arbitrary numbers be they compartment sizes, travel distances, distance of smoke detectors from open shafts, storey heights in dwellings, provision of extinguishers, etc etc.

Why do we need such arbitrary figurees?

To provide us with a benchmark for comparison of risks and a fall back, supported by the official guidance that enables us to make judgements on the potential fire risk and to support decisions on whether the risk is ALARP. The history of the guidance goes back to the Post War building studies which can ce downloaded from the links section of this forum.

[Mike Buckley]

The world is full of such magic figures, for example what happens at 08.00 which makes it legal for me to park my car on the side of the road at 07.59 but illegal at 08.01?

I am an advocate of nice round numbers for example on a FRA if the report states that the maximum capacity is approximately 342 my immediate response is that is not an approximate number.

60 is a nice round number, no one is going to complain if for a short time there are 61 or 62 people in the place as few places have turnstyles on the door to allow one out one in. However if there are 70 people there is clearly a problem.

Other figures seem to be a hangover from older times and metrification. An example of that is the travel distances of 18m and 45m which seem specific except when you look at the old imperial un its where they are as near as dammit to 20 yards and 50 yards (nice round figures). Not half as much fun as I had when I tried to order what the fire service called the metric equivalent of 2 1/2 inch and 1 3/4 inch delivery hose and was told it had to be specially made as these were not standard sizes.

[Tom Sutton]

POST-WAR BUILDING STUDIES NO. 29

298. Dealing first with the direction of opening, it is obvious that, ideally, all doors which may be used for escape should open in the direction of exit travel, so as to avoid the possibility of a door having to be opened against the pressure of a number of people trying to force a way out. Where there is only a small number of people in a room, however, this danger does not really arise (e.g. see Factories Act, 1937, Section 36 (2)-where a door is required to open out if there are more than 10 people in a room). In practice it may also be inconvenient in some cases for a door to open in the direction of exit travel, for instance, where a door opens on to a corridor, although this particular difficulty may be overcome by forming a recess for the door. The matter of practical convenience cannot, of course, be allowed seriously to prejudice life safety, and it is recommended that in all cases where the number of persons in a room or floor area exceeds 40, the doors serving it should, regardless of other considerations, swing in the direction of exit travel or both ways. All doors should open in the direction of exit travel also in buildings containing hazardous occupancies, as the possibility of rapid fire spread in these cases may make it essential to provide for the greatest possible freedom of movement in escape. Doors swinging both ways should be glazed with a panel of clear glazing to minimize risk of collision and where provided in fire-check doors this glazing should be fire resisting. Exit doors which have to be kept shut whilst the building is occupied should be fitted with panic bolts. If external to the building the working parts of such bolts should be of non-rusting metal. An exception to the rule given above can be made in the case of doors opening to the street which are kept locked back in the fully open position during the whole time the building is occupied by persons other than any resident staff. In such cases the doors may open inwards only.

Why has it increased over the years, 50 in the blue guide and now 60 when will it be 70?

[kurnal]

To add to Toms point most of us are of much larger girth than our forefathers in 1947 and therefore it would seem logical that flow rate through doors and other pinch points will be somewhat reduced?