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Posted By TouchBasehse At the moment an office building at work is populated to capacity all the desks are taken. It is now believed that more staff are will be joining us. More desks will be brought in to accommodate the people over and above the floor plan drawing, and will be achieved by taking away small meeting areas. Is there a limit on staff in a building,
Thanks David
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Posted By Dave Wilson Yes there is!
Workplace (HS&W) Regs free leaflet from HSE.gov.uk INDG 244 page 10 explains.
Basically 11Cubic m per person of the dimesnsion of the room but disregarding any height over 3m.
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Posted By Richard L The ACOP states that,
Workrooms should have enough free space to allow people to get to and from workstations and to move within the room, with ease. The number of people who may work in any particular room at any one time will depend not only on the size of the room, but on the space taken up by furniture, fittings, equipment, and on the layout of the room. Workrooms except those where people only work for short periods, should be of sufficient height (from floor to ceiling) over most of the room to enable safe access to and egress from workstations.
The total volume of the room, when empty, divided by the number of people normally working in it should be at least 11 cubic metres. In making this calculation a room or part of a room, which is more than 3.0 m high, should be counted as 3.0 m high. The figure of 11 cubic metres per person is a minimum and may be insufficient if, for example, much of the room is taken up by furniture etc.
That said, you must also consider safe access/egress, fire escapes, welfare facilities, etc, before packing them in.
Richard
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Posted By J Knight I suspect your fire safety risk assessment might well be a very important factor here; refer to 'Fire Safety - An Employer's Guide' for advice on how to calculate how many people can be evacuated safely.
John
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Posted By Rachael Palmer You also need to consider whether the building will need a fire certificate. Do you have or will you have more than 20 people working in the building or more than 10 people who will work elsewhere than on the ground floor? If so you should consider talking to your local Fire Safety Officer about maximum occupancy.
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Posted By Alan Haynes If the building already has a Fire Certificate - removing meeting rooms etc may well necessitate re-certification anyway
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Posted By peter gotch + there may be a requirement to widen eg corridors to enable mobility impaired access.
P
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Posted By Keith32 With the impending change in fire safety legislation i.e. the removal of the need to have a Fire Certificate under the Fire Precautions Act 1971, in my recent experience your local fire service will not be interested in altering your Fire Certificate.
As regards corridors/fire lanes etc - for able-bodied people normally 1m as a minimum is specified. If there are wheel chair bound people the minimum width is usually 1.2m.
These widths will change depending upon the number of people in the building.
Remember the DDA now applies.
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Posted By David Thomas whilst concurring with earlier comments, if additional desks are being brought in this will have to be done in conjunction with your property/estates department, who will have to ensure that any walls removed are carried out in a safe manner and that they are not loadbearing. whoever is doing the planning for all this will be raising a CAD drawing which should be locating desks where fone/data services are available, or getting additional services installed.
The next problem will be carrying out the work, which will mean shifting existing desks to allow contractors to remove walls, which will mean dust - so keep us informed
regards Dave
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