Change of Use to B&B, Part B regs and RRO compliance

[kurnal]

Timandfi
To answer your question on the number of bedrooms and building/ planning law, you may need to take legal advice. I personally dont know where the definition of use of a building is founded. If the Building Regulations are subordinate to Planning on this - I think they may be- you may have a point. The material change of use is quite specific under building Regulations- it is words to the effect of "where a building is to be used as a hotel where previously it was not"

TWS
In this particular EXISTING building, if lobbies are to be installed there is no option but to create a silly little lobby in the corner of each room. That is what the BCO would have timandfi do. I dont disagree that in a new building a properly considered and well laid out lobby can make a significant contribution to fire safety. But it is not practicable to be it in any meaningful way in this building.

On ventilation the greater the pressure differential across a  door the greater the leakage across it. We know that a fire produces a slightly positive pressure in the upper parts of a room involved, and we know that in a staircase the air in the head of the stairs is likely to be warmer than that at the foot and will almost certainly be warmer than the air outside. The rooms will all be below the level of the vent.  So if we have an opening vent in the head of the stair the pressure in the stair itself will be slightly reduced  as the chimney stack effect causes the warmer air to flow out of the vent and inlet air flows in. Wheres the inlet air to come from- probably from leakage paths around the doors to the rooms. One of which may even have (above the neutral plane I accept) a slightly higher positive pressure than the others.

Theres a time for ventilation I grant you to assist access by firefighters and to clear smoke if the staircase does become contaminanted. But I still feel that to provide a vent in the stair that opens on first detection of fire is more likely to impede the safe evacuation in the early stages of the fire by increasing the pressure differential across the fire door and increasing any smoke leakage past it.

Lets remember the discussion we had on flats- the lobby is vented to maintain a negative pressure relative to the stair in order to keep the staircase clear of smoke.

[Ricardo]

An interesting point on the last posting by Kurnal you say the sleeping accommodation document is being held up as best practice in the courts, is there any information freely available on any such cases?

Don't thnk this is the same issue Ricardo. From what I read in the Sparrow Hawk Hotel case there did not seem to be fire doors on the rooms at all. In timandfi's case the issue is about have to provide two.

Yes, just saying that the guides have been used in court to support a fire authorities case and thought it may have been useful to timandfi

[Tom Sutton]

Kurnal I agree entirely with you I was not arguing the need for lobbies in this case, I was saying if lobbies are not provided and you wish to meet the relevant requirements in some other way then simple saying upgrade the AFD is not sufficient you need to give a full detailed argument why, I believe it is that which will convince the BCO.

My point about the ventilation was assuming the fire door to the room of origin had smoke seals and as it would only be open a short period of time the amount of smoke entering the staircase would be minimum and the ventilation would more than able to cope with the situation.

[timandfi]

Hi, Sorry to pester for further advise but a development today which may well in the long term be good but has left us feeling a little abandoned. The fire consultant chap we were dealing with has spoken to the fire authority and most recently to the local fire safety officer, although he is the local station manager too (is this usual?). The fire officer has suggested a site meeting with BC and I have subsequently called him to understand how best to arrange this. I now have the impression that our fire consultant chap is perhaps backing off as the fire officer is none to keen on the velux window option for exactly the reasons some of you have mentioned (he quoted a residential home in Glasgow where someone smoked and many had died from cold smoke?) although the consultant says BC appear OK with it. Fire officer is very pro sprinkler systems but did say he will be led by BC as long as we conform to the RRO.
We want to be as prepared as possible in advance of this meeting and will take on board may of the kind suggestions you have put forward. But my biggest concern out of today is figure 50 page 98 of the sleeping accom document. I had always thought we conformed to that and that this would be good defence in meeting the RRO but our fire consultant says we do not because the diagram shows the top storey as just one room and we have multiple? I quoted text to him re 'access to a stairway from any room is through one fire door' but he says para above 'the corridors serving bedrooms in sleeping areas and stairway are protected routes, completely enclosed in 30 minute fire resisting construction and all doors onto the corridor and stairway are self closing fire doors' and we do not have protected corridors. We don't have corridors full stop but is the stairway not classed as protected bacause all doors onto it are fire doors with self closers? He says the figure for a 4 stoery building relates to us?
Would the fire officer be swayed if we offered an L1 system and / or the cold smoke seals someone mentioned? Would it be good for us to time getting out of the building via the escape route and also the time to open and close doors and if so is there a calculation to assess how much smoke could enter the escape route when a door is opened?
Thanks

[FORRIE]

timandfi
I feal sorry for your problem, and have read all the good advice you have been given, it appears to me that if you cannot provide two door protection to the single three storey staircase you must come up with a fire egineering solution which ADB indicates ventilation to the staircase. It seems that two door protection in an old building is difficult or near impossible to provide. The problem with  two door protection if it was fitted in such a confined space that the occupiers of the bedrooms could wedge open the inner door which would then effectively become one door protection! There is a far greater risk in an HMO that most local authorities would allow with single door
protection to a three storey building, but that doesn't help your case .

[kurnal]

Curiouser and curiouser. Timandfi  I cant answer the new developments cos they dont make any sense to me.

A protected route is defined on page 134 of the fire safety order guidance and in different terms on page 143 of ADB. Your proposed staircase enclosure creates a protected route with a single door protection, the ADB is looking for double door protection- the question is all about how much protection is required and appropriate in this case.

The corridors and single room bit is absolute hogwash. Sounds to me like the meeting with the fire officer was the blind leading the visually impaired. None of the guidance documents are perfect, they are guides not bibles.  There are very many direct contradictions between ADB and the Fire Safety guidance- take a look at the position of inner rooms- ADB para 3.10.b, guidance page 73- direct contradiction.
Take a look at fire doors table B1 box 10- fire doors to places of special  fire risk dont need smoke seals!

And yes the fire officer will be very pro sprinkler systems, we all are but is a sprinkler system a reasonable and proportionate response to your design problem?  I think sprinklers are a great solution but your duty of care is as far as reasonably practicable in the circumstances of the case.

Lets be clear if you are going anywhere with this your fire doors must be FD30S SC - they must incorporate intumescent fire and cold smoke seals preferably - as most are- combined seals. You must provide detection to L2 and offering L1 is not much of a further enhancement in your building- probably one or two additional detectors in the roof space.

Yes there are calculations methods based on assumptions but this could be a very  time consuming, toruous and costly route to go down because they all are based on 1001 assumptions and in such a small fire compartment consequences of error and variations in fire growth and development would make a huge potential difference. Any element could be challenged at any stage- fire and fuel, fire development rate, location of fire in room,  degree of ventilation of the fire compartment, leakage round the door seals, fire door open or closed or 1/4 open as in the BRE flats   Common sense is the better route I think.

You are only going to get one more go at this so make it count. Theres plenty of information in this thread and suggestions of suitable alternative solutions. I believe  both the history and the Fire Safety order guidance are on your side. But there can be no guarantees.
Sopmething like this:

History of double door protection- then and now
Double door protection- strengths and weaknesses
Creation of artificial lobbies in existing buildings- a flawed solution- size of lobby, abuse by occupants
Limited travel distance
SWOT analysis
Taking on  the strengths - bettering the weakness
Multi sensor detection- the earliest warning of all types of fire
FD30 S doorsets and quality workmanship- additional seals?
Swing free closers - beating the wedge, guaranteeing the escape route
Opportunities for good management driving down the risk- furnishings, heating systems, electrical and gas safety, management and supervision.

[timandfi]

Thank you once again.
We are going to take a little time to thoroughly prepare our written documentation with all your kind suggestions included prior to meeting with BC and the Fire Officer.
Will keep you all informed on progress!

[timandfi]

Good Morning All

You may recall around 6 months ago this posting on the forum and our promise to advise you of the final outcome. Well I am very very pleased to report that we now have our full plans building regs approval for change of use to a B&B. This is in the main due to the generosity and fantastic work of the guys at TFS Ltd. TFS initially contacted us via the forum as they thought we had had a good deal of conflicting advise and thought our case was worth a fight that could indeed be won. They offered their expertise free of charge and conducted a full risk assessment of our premises and based on this devised a proposal to put forward to building control. Their amazing knowledge was coupled with a common sense approach which was  sympathetic to the age and structure of the building but in no way compromised the safety of our future guests. The proposal was submitted and after 8 nail biting weeks was agreed without amendment and we can now move forward on the whole project.

Our aim had never been to 'get something for nothing' from the forum but as a start up business facing such an up hill battle with a seemingly uncompromising BCO we will be forever grateful to TFS and the forum in general. What this whole situation has made us realise is the value of professional risk assessment and we hope you can do our part promoting this to others in the future.

As a gesture of thanks to all who offered their advise we have made a donation to the fire service charity and once we are up and running any member of the forum will be very welcome to stay at our B&B in Whitby at a special discounted rate. And at least you will know if will be one of the safest B&B's around!

Once again thanks to one and all and especially TFS.

[kurnal]

Thanks for the update Fi and that is good news.
Presumably you have ended up with a protected staircase with a single fire door to each room and detection in all rooms and the staircse? Or have you had to do more?

[nearlythere]

Good Morning All

You may recall around 6 months ago this posting on the forum and our promise to advise you of the final outcome. Well I am very very pleased to report that we now have our full plans building regs approval for change of use to a B&B. This is in the main due to the generosity and fantastic work of the guys at TFS Ltd. TFS initially contacted us via the forum as they thought we had had a good deal of conflicting advise and thought our case was worth a fight that could indeed be won. They offered their expertise free of charge and conducted a full risk assessment of our premises and based on this devised a proposal to put forward to building control. Their amazing knowledge was coupled with a common sense approach which was  sympathetic to the age and structure of the building but in no way compromised the safety of our future guests. The proposal was submitted and after 8 nail biting weeks was agreed without amendment and we can now move forward on the whole project.

Our aim had never been to 'get something for nothing' from the forum but as a start up business facing such an up hill battle with a seemingly uncompromising BCO we will be forever grateful to TFS and the forum in general. What this whole situation has made us realise is the value of professional risk assessment and we hope you can do our part promoting this to others in the future.

As a gesture of thanks to all who offered their advise we have made a donation to the fire service charity and once we are up and running any member of the forum will be very welcome to stay at our B&B in Whitby at a special discounted rate. And at least you will know if will be one of the safest B&B's around!

Once again thanks to one and all and especially TFS.

Well done. Pity they could not have seen the situation right at the start without having to resort to what you went through. Glad you hung in there. Many would have given up.
Where is Whitby anyway?

[Tom Sutton]

I must assume you are not a fan of DRACULAR

[nearlythere]

I must assume you are not a fan of DRACULAR

Eh???

[Tom Sutton]

http://www.draculawhitby.co.uk/

[timandfi]

Good Morning

Final solution was to enhance the new L2 system with voice alert (fire cryer) on the second floor and to demonstrate all benefits the renovations added eg rewiring to current standard, new plastering, new fire door seals etc and this was all shown in the FRA with the backing of some calculations on smoke ingress etc.
As an aside the local authority BC dept also changed to a centralised North Yorks Building Control body so different people handling the case too.
As I said before we know promote he benefits of professional FRA to all we come into contact with!

And yes we are in central Whitby...will let you know when we are up and running.

Thanks again to all

[nearlythere]

And theres me thought Dracula was a fictional character.