quote=FireSafety101]Invictus, this one worries me on two counts.
1. You are doing fire risk assessments and don't know what tou are assessing. Don't want to knock you too much because as least you know you need to know more and are asking the question here.
2. I am concerned about the fire doors and the mention of sleeping risk.
If I were you I would not hesitate in notifying the fire and rescue service, they need to know what is going on there.
The above is my personal opinion and based entirely on the information supplied on this thread.
1 I am well qualified in fire risk assessment and I have assessed a number of different areas, prisons, mental health institutions etc.
Starting this job has thrown me as they don't really want to do anything unless it is legal no best practice or anything.
The reason I asked the question about self closers was they had them taken off and when I read the report it stated something like 'wedges are being used to hold doors open, this must cease immediately. Fire doors are an integral part of fire safety. Wedging the doors means that staff have to physically close the doors' The next statement read 'we are removing the self closers to prevent the need for staff to wedge them open' but now the doors stay open and staff in the event of a fire will have to close them manually anyway so the object of the exercise was somewhat defeated.
The difference with this house is it is a dwelling, although I read something that stated ' a house stops being a dwelling when it is converted into ' a care home, childrens home etc. We have other houses that we own and are childrens homes yet the rules are different as they insist on door closers on all doors including bedrooms. Both places have waking watch and a member of staff sleeping in, so a fire starting and getting out of control is slim. If you take away the fact that the residents in this place are paying we would still owe a duty of care to the employees.
We do not use signs 'keep door closed' etc or direction fire exit signs, because they are supposed to be a home, but we still have to have a fire drill 4 times per year now if it were just classed as a dwelling you wouldn't have to do that. So areas become clouded on what you must do and what you don't have to do.
I not to sure that self closers would be of great benefit with the exception of keeping smoke at bay as the doors have all been fitted with smoke seals, but there are certainally doors that are not constructed as fire doors.
I am quite happy with what I do and I have had no compliants form anywhere I have assessed. Sometimes it's the way companies try to protray the establishment to move the goal posts.