As I have said before I am new to this and I welcome any comments that would be helpful. I have come across a situation that I am unsure where I stand or how to progress it, if it should be at all.
I went to a detached house that is used as a care home for 3 challenging children. They have a bedroom each on the 1st floor. There are two members of staff on site at any one time, they work 24 hour shifts so they sleep overnight, one upstairs in their own room and one downstairs in their own room.
At night the kitchen and lounge doors are locked for security reasons, leaving the route down the stairs to the front door the only means of escape, this is within the 9m in a bedroom and overall 18m for a single direction of travel (as per the sleeping guide) the 18m for independent people (as per the healthcare premises guide) and over the 9m suggested in the residential care premises.
They have a linked part 6 system in all rooms and there is emergency lighting.
It was identified in the fire risk assessment that illicit smoking takes place in the children?s bedrooms and the staff try to manage it.
None of the doors are true fire doors, they appear to be a solid construction but there are no strips and seals that you would expect in a modern property and there are no self closers.
I have asked for self closers and have been challenged by them stating that they have been classified as a C3b care home and are a domestic situation.
I do not see this as a family unit as the staff are rotating every 24 hours. In every guide I have read due to the dead end self closers and automatic fire detection is required. I appreciate that they are only guides but in my opinion there is a situation where a fire could start in a bedroom and the occupant may not remember to close the door behind them, particularly at night when evacuation may be slower, this could lead to the escape route being affected by smoke. The bedroom downstairs could be the worst case as the smoke from here would funnel up the stairs. So far I have invited the responsible person to justify in their Fire Risk Assessment why they would not need to protect the only escape route with self closing devices.
Am I being unreasonable? Am I asking too much? Is there a way to justify not having self closing devices? I would like your thoughts and reasoning behind it please.