Rank: Forum user
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Calling all you fire safety experts out there. I have a query regarding the sounding of fire alarms. We have an area of buildings that is divided by a service road. Area 1 as it where is the main office building, area 2 has the garages a small office, flammable stores and vehicle workshop. If the alarm sounds in area 1 it does not in area 2 and vica verse. Following a fire risk assessment it was felt that this should be altered so if area 1 was alight all persons in the area would know to go to the assembly area and even more importantly if area 2 was alight (which after all has all the nasties stored in it) the occupants of area 1 would be notified and get out of the way to the assembly area. This recommendation has been resisted and proof of this requirement has been requested - as it would cost quite a bit to alter the existing system. Does anyone know if, due to the close proximity of one building to another the systems should be linked and which BS standard if any advises this, or any document for that matter? I've looked in BS 5839 and can't find any clues. Hoping someone can shed some light on this for me
Thanks
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Rank: Forum user
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We recently moved into a new campus and have a very similar situation where our main building is on one system and the other side of the road., that runs through the campus hosts our painting/decorating, gas fitters workshop and vehicle workshop, all which have there own flammable stores. As in your situation the systems run independantly and I have recently had all the watches from Fire Brigade down to do familiarisation tours.
They asked what I would do if a fire broke out in one area that would require the other area to be evacuated and I responded that if the situation arose where we would want to evacuate both building we would manually activate the other system. They all seemed satisfied with this solution so it may be worth asking you local Fire service for advice.
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Rank: Super forum user
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IMHO If the two buildings are seperated by a service road I can't see the need for the alarms to be cross linked. I cannot speak for the person that gave you this advice but I could imagine that their decision has been effected by the fact the two buildings are under single occupancy. It may be that if your staff regularly move from one building to the other the only way that he or she could think of accounting for everyone would be by evacuating everyone.
If you evacuated one building and couldn't account for somebody they could be either trapped in the burining building or over the road sipping tea in the other. These factors would have a bearing on whether or not the Fire & Rescue Services would risk sending someone in to do a search.
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Rank: Super forum user
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I think that if the "premises" are seperate there is no need for dual alarming. Think about it as two different companies in diferent buildings.
However if you want that arrangement go for it!
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