Determination on type of detection in hotel bedrooms

[Phoenix]

FYI, the following link will take you to a very recent determination (yesterday) on the type of detection required in a hotel bedroom. 

In brief, it has turned down the enforcing fire authority's application that, to fully protect every relevant person in a hotel (as required by the RR(FS)O), smoke detection must be fitted in the bedrooms.

Of course, it does not set a precedent, but it must set a trend through what has been a sticky area in recent times. 

If you read it, you will appreciate that the fire authority did not put a scientifically rigorous and thorough case forward but relied on policies, hearsay and weak statistical evidence.  This leaves the door open for further approaches but anyone trying to enforce smoke detection over heat will have to have substantial technical evidence that a real advantage will be gained by this costly improvement.

I believe common sense has prevailed here, as is often the case in the world of fire safety.


http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/fire/hotelfiredetection

Stu

[Davo]

Commonsense indeed Stu

However, both sides appear not to have offered much in the way of evidence for their side of things
Para 22 proves very interesting.........


davo

[Steven N]

Thats a very interesting & significant determination Stu, i'm sure its implications will be discussed at great length, perhaps even by us!!!

[CivvyFSO]

I find it hard to believe that a FRS has taken it that far in the first place.

[Phoenix]

I find it hard to believe that a FRS has taken it that far in the first place.

I do too, Civvy, but I know of two FRSs that have pushed this a long way.  There's always someone trying to make a name for themselves.

Stu

[colin todd]

I tried to tell 'em Civvy, but they wouldnt listen, but chose instead to make a contribution to the maintenance of the former Mrs Todd. Anyhow, good result, common sense decision, crap typing, grammer and punctuation. Does no one at CLG check these things for Sir K before they go public? The Civil Service is just not what it yoost to was.

[Clevelandfire 3]

Very interesting. I note that the hotel doesn't want to change heat to smoke because of false alarm issues. To me the biggest false alarm problems they may get are people smoking in hotel bedrooms or dust, or possibly steam from en suite bathrooms if the detectors havent been cited properly.

I rather fancy that surripticious smoking would be the biggest cause of false alarms, and thus if a smoker is stupid enough to smoke in a non smoking room theyre putting themselves at risk, so long as everyone else is protected against such irresponsible behavior then job done. Heat detection will do that so case closed as far as im concerned - fire autority wrong in this case - but just goes to show that deteminations are there to provide fair hearing between parties in disagreement and despite the spelling and grammar mistakes I applaud Sir Ken for a balanced and well judged findings.

Yes common sense has prevailed (or is that prevailled?.)

[Allen Higginson]

Are there stats on deaths of residents in rooms due to fire in said same room versus actual genuine fire activations throughout rest of the building?
If the risk of false alarm greatly outweighs the actual need for smoke detection within the room (as so to stop complacency due to "ahh sure,it's only a false alarm" syndrome) then heat it is in my opinion.
We really have become a country/nation of risk asessing and worrying about the unlikely,haven't we?

[colin todd]

Yes, Buzzy there are stats. We gave them to the good Sir K as part of the client's submission. They have been reproduced in these bulletin boards in the past, though some enforcers did not seem to agree with the interpretation . Luckily they were not the ones advising Sir K, so I am inclined to forgive them for the odd split infinitive in the submission to the Minister, who probably would not know the difference anyway.

[CivvyFSO]

cited
surripticious
autority
deteminations
and despite the spelling and grammar mistakes I applaud Sir Ken for a balanced and well judged findings.

Cleveland, I do believe that you have the qualities to get a job writing reports for Sir Kinight.

[Midland Retty]

cited
surripticious
autority
deteminations
and despite the spelling and grammar mistakes I applaud Sir Ken for a balanced and well judged findings.

Cleveland, I do believe that you have the qualities to get a job writing reports for Sir Kinight.

CivvyFSo

What I like about what youve done here is that you've taken the time to pick out all the spelling mistakes in Clevelandfire's earlier post, you have neatly arranged them for all to see and then added a nice little quip at the end for good measure.

This coupled with you creating some treble and quadrouple quoting box antics on another thread really has really attracted the attention of we mortals at the rest home for the bewildered.

Why have we not seen you down at the banter bar lately young man!

Now get back to work!

[jokar]

Perhaps it's a Northern thing!!  Mind you, I would like to know who Civvy things Sir Kinight is?

[Tall Paul]

It is an interesting determination - and we could use more to clear up some of the mirky areas.

As a point of interest though, Colin's British Standard, published in 2002, allows for the demise of the occupant in the room of origin to allow for the greater good of protecting the means of escape for the remainder of the population.  And the FSO seeks to protect all relevant persons, including the room's fateful sleeper.

However as we don't have fatalities piling up to support a full scale change in the standard it would seem that the expense of switching from HD to SD across the nation might not be appropriate.  Where are those piles of cadavars when you need them?

Paul

[CivvyFSO]

What murky areas?

Even though BS5839 allows the demise of the occupant and the FSO seeks to protect that same person, the guidance issued by the CLG to assist in complying with the FSO states that a BS5839 system is appropriate.

It will only take one incident that creates a newsworthy story, then the fire safety 'experts' will come crawling out explaining that the fire alarms standard 'allows' you to die in the room of origin in hotels. The media and the public won't give a damn about statistics, unwanted fire alarms, Mr Todds credentials or his expert opinion. Nor will the politicians, as Mr Todd is only 1 vote and won't make very interesting reading because nobody understands his humour as it is far too clever. Although, 10 years after the switch if more people are dying due to a switch over to smoke, then Mr Todds opinion will be most important, and his credentials will also be important to the point of "Why didn't the law/guidance makers listen to this man at the time???". (Providing the dementia hasn't taken full hold by then of course.)

All that being said, taking the lack of any other info into account, the determination seems fair.

[Mike Buckley]

Aren't people missing the magic words "as far as is reasonably practicable". Yes the FSO looks to protect people, but the measures must be practical. Yes smoke detectors will give a more rapid response but this has to be balanced against the issues of unwanted signals due to steam from showers etc.

I agree with others the determination seems fair.