Morning,

We have an industrial unit that we are letting out to a new tenant. It comprises of an open warehouse area (which will be used for storing liquor and spirits) and groundfloor / first floor offices.

The first floor of these offices have recently been extended (on stilts mezzanine style).

My issue is this: Because of the extension the new offices are quite away from the staircase and the final fire exit outside. Further concerns are raised by the fact that these offices have no windows or viewing panels to alert inhabitants of fire in other areas of the unit - never mind a fire alarm.

The furthest point of these offices is 22 metres away from the single external fire exit.

I have advised that this is an excessive distance (using the 18 metre rule in the guidance) and due to the fire risk of stock stored in the unit, and the risk that inhabitants of the mezzanine floor would not be aware of a fire one of the following measures should be taken:

A: Provision of an additional, external fire escape to the far side of the mezzanine floor.

B: Provision of viewing panels / windows & doors to the extended mezzanine along with a fire alarm system to give sufficient warning of a fire to make one exit accessible and acceptable.

Fire protection material for the offices is half hour.

Comments please!

(Where's Bleve when you need him / her?)

Ian

Ian

It's not exactly clear what the internal structure of your building (along which you have measured the 22m) is. How do the people in the first floor offices get to the external fire exit? Is this via an internal staircase or do they go directly to an external fire escape? If the former, is any part of the escape route protected or are we talking about an unprotected staircase leading into the warehouse area and then across to the door?

Without wishing to slavishly follow the Code (since it is not the only option) I would suggest that you are using the wrong figure from ADB. 18 m applies to "Shop & commercial". You need to apply the "industrial" or "storage" figure. It also looks from your description of the use that it could be the "high hazard" distance of 12m that you have to use since ADB gives one defintion of this as "storage of significant amounts of hazardous goods or materials .. including any liquid substance with a flash point below 65 degress C including whisky or other spiritous liquor".

If however it was categorised as "normal hazard" then the acceptable distance becomes 25m. I would still agree with you that the people on the first floor need to have adequate warning of a fire in the warehouse though regardless of the travel distance! AFD would seem appropriate.

Also call in the local fire officer. And is this a change of use if so planning may need to be involved?

Ian - if your staircase from the first floor is protected then that shortens your travel distance, which only needs to be measured up to the entrance to the protected stair (I'm still not clear from your description if this stair is open to the warehosue or not.)

I am very tempted to reply to this but you may have already received the proper advice.

The problem with this type of scenario is we are unable to see the area either in person or in the form of a drawing.

Fire safety is never black and white with one straight answer as there is usually something there that we don't see.

I believe a good fire risk assessor has a head full of experience and can pick up on something others may miss.

I hope that makes sense?