Compartmentalisation and sleeping accomodation

[Fire Monkey]

Hello,

I have seen a building with sleeping accommodation (single person rooms) along a corridor in a larger building (all one occupation). There are defects in the walls around the  building that include small holes (1/2cm diameter) where wires have been passed through, larger holes (5cm wide) and in the sleeping area the walls and between the rooms and the escape corridor have not been finished on both sides. The effect of this is that the walls will provide 30 minute protection instead of 60 minutes if the plasterboard walls met the ceiling on the other side. The Architects initial response to this to say that none of the walls separating the rooms used for sleeping are fire compartment ones and all of the rooms are in one compartment and so fire sealing the individual room is not necessary (they accept though that walls between fire compartments do need to be complete).

Compartmentalisation and compartments - to me these are separate things. Compartments are the areas that might be 60 min fire rated that for the structure of the building and protect staircases and would be part of building safety as well as fire safety. Compartmentalisation is different and would be concerned with all the other walls, ceilings and floors that might affect the means of escape and breaches would need to be fire stopped. Is there a different terminology I should be using?

So does sleeping accommodation always have to have 60 mins, in the room itself, and along the escape route?

FM

[Fire Monkey]

Sorry - forgot to ask under what circumstances might a building need to be sub-divided into fire protected areas - for sleeping accommodation what criteria should be considered.

[Dinnertime Dave]

I'm assuming from your discrption that the sleeping accommodation is similar to a hotel. If that is the case then the corridor should be protected by 30 fire resistance and there is no requirement to fire resist between the rooms.

There should be an L2 alarm with simultaneous evacuation.

[wee brian]

compartmentalisation is not a recognised term.

compartmentation is.

flats are separated with compartment walls, hotels just have protected corridors.

[GB]

Wee Brian, does that apply to Student Accommodation as well?

[Fire Monkey]

What if its a fire station?

[Dinnertime Dave]

What if its a fire station?

It's still sleeping accommodations, the same principles apply

Sleeping accommodation on a fire station - Surely not.

[Messy]

Back in my water squirting days, I asked my boss why we had 10 guys sleeping above a garage containing two HGVs each with petrol, electrics, and the building had two pole house shafts leading directly to the dormitory (via non fire doors) - all of this without a FRA (WP Regs days) and without any fire alarm system?

He answered we didn't need it as we are all firefighters!! (Not the sharpest tool in the box, but a tool nonetheless )

[nearlythere]

Back in my water squirting days, I asked my boss why we had 10 guys sleeping above a garage containing two HGVs each with petrol, electrics, and the building had two pole house shafts leading directly to the dormitory (via non fire doors) - all of this without a FRA (WP Regs days) and without any fire alarm system?

He answered we didn't need it as we are all firefighters!! (Not the sharpest tool in the box, but a tool nonetheless )

Quite right. Firefighters don?t burn.

[Fire Monkey]

So is a fire station like a hotel with no need to protect between individual dorms? Or should each bedroom be 30 min on each side?

[Dinnertime Dave]

So is a fire station like a hotel with no need to protect between individual dorms? Or should each bedroom be 30 min on each side

Best hotel I ever stayed in

Separate the purpose groups, protect the escape routes and provide detection. No need to provide separation between rooms.