Listed buildings, olde worlde hotels etc

[stewbow]

Are there any differences to the standards of fire precautions that are required to be put in place in a building such as a 18 century guest house with large 6 panel doors, traditionally decorated and furnished?
I have an aquaintance who has such a building, who upto now (and the FO hasn't done anything about it), has refused to have any sort of instruction or directional signs whatsoever fitted, and has no intumescent smoke and heat seals on the doors. The final exit doors are French Windows that open inwards and have removable keys as well as top and bottom bolts.
Fire extinguishers (dry powder) on the landings are neatly hidden away, out of sight.

Your comments please?

[kurnal]

The likely reason the fire officer hasn't taken action may be that if there was no sleeping accommodation for staff or guests above the first floor or below the ground floor, and less than 6 staff or guests sleeping in,  then it would have fallen outside the Fire Precautions Act criteria for a fire certificate.

 Small hotels had little or no involvement from the fire officers other than for occasional purges to make sure they had less than 6 etc. Generally similar standards to domestic houses was the norm. Will things change from the 1st October? The premises will need a risk assessment but the significant findings will not need to be recorded unless 5 or more employees or a licence is held. So dont hold your breath. and theres no longer any control or safety net of where guests may sleep- in the past one on the second floor needed a fire cert. So families moved upstairs to let the guests use the first floor..

[John Webb]

The new Guides to the Fire Safety Order taking effect from 1st October all have a short Appendix C on historic/listed buildings. This acknowledges that in such buildings it may not be physically possible or desirable to make alterations that can be made to more recent buildings, and that closer management of the risks will be necessary to compensate. This is an area in which I have much interest as many of the churches I advise are rather earlier than 18th Century!
I have not read the Guide on sleeping accomodation yet and it's not an area in which I have great knowledge - I expect others will advise you better on what they think the building ought to have done to it. I'd seriously consider the installation of sprinklers to control virtually any outbreak of fire not only to protect the occupants but the building itself. This can be done very discretely these days. And there are also very good exit signs and emergency lights available as well that can be inserted with minimum disturbance into older buildings.
Do let us know how your friend gets on - especially after he's had the Fire Risk Assesment done!

[Chris Houston]

Are there any differences to the standards of fire precautions that are required to be put in place in a building such as a 18 century guest house with large 6 panel doors, traditionally decorated and furnished?
I have an aquaintance who has such a building, who upto now (and the FO hasn't done anything about it), has refused to have any sort of instruction or directional signs whatsoever fitted, and has no intumescent smoke and heat seals on the doors. The final exit doors are French Windows that open inwards and have removable keys as well as top and bottom bolts.
Fire extinguishers (dry powder) on the landings are neatly hidden away, out of sight.

Your comments please?

Since 1997 there has been a legal requirement to undertake a fire safety risk assessment in places of employment.

I know it's a guest house, not a hotel, but it may be of interest to note that the BRE report in 2002 that we have 3 fires a day in UK hotels.

[kurnal]

Stevebow
Please let us know how many guests and staff? Where is the sleeping accommodation? Is the staircase enclosed and does it have a final exit from the hallway? Is there any fire alarm system or linked detectors?
A very small guest house may not need much more than a well equipped private dwelling. Depends on the answers to the above questions.

Historic buildings are fascinating to work in. There is much that can be done without affecting the character of the building- see the English Heritage approved system for upgrading doors as an example.  

There are two seperate issues here- life safety and heritage protection. Both are important but until recently the fire authorities have only focussed on life safety. Things are changing now though as a result of the modernisation of the service.

[Ashley Wood]

Chris, can you direct me to the web site for the BRE repprt?

Thanks

Ashley

[John Webb]

Re the Dry Powder extinghushers:
The Ecclesiastical Insurance Group (EIG) - who insure the vast majority of CoE churches and some others -have just issued a warning reminding churches they do not recommend the use of DP extinguishers in church buildings. This follows a recent vandalism case in which yobs sprayed DP round a church after breaking into it. Substantial scaffolding is having to be erected to clean the church from top to bottom (and particularly the organ) to free it from the DP which has got everywhere, it seems. EIG also feel the risk in churches warrents the use of water/multi-purpose AFFF spray/CO2 rather than DP; apparently they consider DP in a heritage building poses more potental hazards to the fabric of the building than the other extinguishing agents.

BRE website is www.bre.co.uk

[stewbow]

Kurnal

Off the top of my head, I think that there are 5 1st floor rooms and 3 2nd floor rooms, all doubles with en-suites, the staircase is not enclosed, it does lead to the main front door (which has a removable key in the lock).
There is a Part 1 type Fire Alarm system with detctors in all the bedrooms.
The owners accomodation is seperate, and i'm sure they employ more than 5 people.

Stuart

[Chris Houston]

Chris, can you direct me to the web site for the BRE repprt?

Thanks

Ashley

Website above.  Data from "Fire Safety in Hotels" BRE Trust.

[kurnal]

Stuart
Trying to make sense of the situation you describe the building sounds as though it has to some extent  been stuck in the 1971 time warp caused by the Fire Precautions Act.
A fire certificate would certainly have been required. In the wake of the Act there was a huge workload for the fire prevention departments to issue certificates and bring many previously very substandard buildings up to a certifiable standard. Remember that in those times there were no fire seals, asbestos was still in use and manual operated alarms were the norm. Many older substantial doors were accepted as nominal half hour doors if they had decent thickness stiles, rails (say 40mm) and 12 mm panels and 25mm rebates planted on. Once the certificate was issued the fire authority had no power to require further improvements unless changes were made to the building. It sounds as though someone has managed to persuade the owner to install full AFD though- this was often on the back of the owner changing the rooms to ensuite.

From Oct 1st theres no hiding place. The owner can no longer rely on ancient history and will have to justify his decision not to improve standards and will stand or fall by his decision.
As for signs, I guess if the building is of a reasonably straightforward layout, and all building users were given a guided tour on arrival it may be possible to create some kind of argument to avoid providing exit signs.

[boroboy]

Re: the use of dry powder extinguishers in churches can John Webb please direct me to a copy of the document from EIG?  I have to commence a survey of churches shortly.
Regards Boroboy

[John Webb]

Re DPs in churches: Try www.ecclesiastical.co.uk - if you have problems ring 01452 528533 and probably try Chris Hawkings for the information.

[boroboy]

Thanks for that John.  Boroboy

[Donna]

Hi, even though I was in a listed "public" building, the disabled (wheelchair) door that I had to enter, was Locked behind me, I then had to get on a wheelchair stannah lift and go up 5 or 6 steps. Due to the multi use of this council owned building, this particular day, operated a service for the public, and due to high security of various proffessionals etc the doors that would open onto the corridor were closed or locked, and large heavy velvet curtains were pulled closed for privicy... meaning NO natural light approx 1 lux, in my opinion too dim to see what the obsticles were in that said corridor, the member of staff that has to be present, as this was "the unofficial way in for wheelchairs only" he had to squeeze pass me to get to the next door he had to open, hence noticing how narrow the corridor is, anyway to cut a long story a bit shorter, when I reached desired destination I realised that the ONLY fire escape was the double stairway down onto the street. there were No evacuation chairs for the disabled, taking into account that the firemans lift is 1. No longer in practice and, 2, The Manual handling of certain disabled persons would cause severe damage to the disabled person and the lifter!  It was not explained to me upon entering, what emergency proccedures were, and on further investigating after leaving the building I have since found out that lavish functions and weddings are held at this same venue! when I phoned up the wedding hall hire dept, I was told they have a fire limit for 200 buffet style and 150 persons seated, when asked about evacuation proceedures
the person sounded uneasy, they told me there is 2 staff only at the building when there is a wedding and of course the cateres that have been hired by wedding party, no training other that serving food, as soon as I asked who was the nominated person on the risk assessment, out of the 2 staff, they did not know what I was on about, and when I asked how they would intend to deal with wheelchaired persons, and evacuation equipment etc, well they just didnt know what to say, but whats really bugging me about this, is that I have had to send 7 emails to the HSE about this, and the best they can say Is " We dont need to visit the building, we have READ DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE that has been compiled by the STAFF OF THE BUILDING, that THEIR PERIODIC HAZARD REPORTS dont seem to highlight any problems"  when I asked about which rule book they adhered to regarding ticking the right boxes for the hazard report, it was made clear at this point that they were only adhering to THEIR own set of rules! I think this is a terrible cover up by HSE and I have infact taken the matter to the official complaints dept, but really what are HSE all about?... I would love some replies on this please especially from a fire safety point of view, and the disabled etc etc. Donna

[John Webb]

Dear Donna,
Thanks for pointing out the problems in one building at least. As from Sunday the 1st of October, fire legislation underwent a large-scale change and the local Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) are now the enforcing authority, not HSE. So I regret I have to tell you that you now ought to be speaking with the local FRS for the building concerned. Out of interest what age is the building you are complaining about?

Clearly whatever authority this building serves probably had never asked a wheelchair user to check the access for them; as you have so ably demonstrated it's by far the best way to sort out any potential or actual problems.

Have you tried contacting the Mayor, chief executive or other senior person of the authority concerned to make your concerns known? This is another way to try and get action taken in a co-operative fashion. If that doesn't work then letters to the local press can apply pressure they find difficult to ignore!