FIRE SAFTEY - DWELLING HOUSES
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Introduction
Self - contained Smoke Alarms
Automatic Smoke Detection and Alarms
Emergency Lighting
Windows and External Doors for Escape
Three-storey Dwelling Houses
Loft Conversions
Fire Safety - Flats and Maisonettes
Introduction
The source of all information contained in this section is taken from Section B of the Building Regulations 1991 (1992 edition) - Fire Safety.
The means of escape from a one or two storey house are simple and few provisions are specified beyond ensuring that each habitable room either opens directly onto a hallway or stair leading to the entrance, or that it has a window or door through which escape can be made.
Guidance in this section also applies to houses classed as being in multiple occupation (HMOs)
Self - contained Smoke Alarms
- Should be positioned near to places where fires are likely to start (e.g. outside Kitchens or in the Living Room) to pick up smoke in the early stages of a fire. They should also be close enough to bedroom doors to be effective when occupants are asleep.
- Should be fitted to the ceiling at least 300 mm from any wall or light fitting (or for units designed for wall fitting between 150 - 300 mm below the ceiling).
- Should be easily reachable for routine testing and maintenance
Automatic Smoke Detection and Alarms
- Should be either wholly mains operated or with a secondary power supply (e.g. battery), preferably interlinked.
- Are considered to be the most suitable system for very large dwellings and houses in multiple occupation (where the distance from any part of one room to the furthest point in another at any one level is more than 30 metres long). There should be a system of discrete detectors and alarms connected to a central control unit.
- · Bells and sounders should be audible to all sleeping areas of the property
Emergency Lighting
All escape routes should have adequate artificial escape lighting that illuminates the route if the mains supply fails. Lighting to escape stairs should be on a separate circuit from that supplying any other part of the escape route.
Windows and External Doors for Escape
- Should have an unobstructed opening that is at least 850 mm high and 500 mm wide and the bottom of a window opening should be not more 1100 mm and not less than 800 mm above the floor.
- It should enable the person escaping to reach a place free from fire (courtyard or garden etc.)
Three-storey Dwelling Houses
- The upper storeys (those above ground storey) should be served by a protected stairway which should either lead to:
- a final exit
- or give access to two escape routes at ground level, each leading to a final exit separated from each other by fire-resisting construction and self-closing (30 minute) fire doors.
- The top storey should be separated from the lower storeys by a fire-resisting construction.
Loft Conversions
Providing that the conversion is not more than 50 m2, does not contain more than 2 habitable rooms and hasn't involved raising the roofline above the original ridge, the following applies:
- The stair in the ground and first storeys should be enclosed with walls and/or partitions which are fire resisting and should lead to either a final exit or at least two exits at ground level separated from each other by fire resisting construction and self-closing fire doors
- Each doorway within the enclosure to the existing stair should be fitted with a door which, in the case of doors fitted to habitable rooms, should be fitted with a self-closing device. Any new door to a habitable room should be a fire door but existing doors only need to be made self-closing
- Any glazing in the enclosure to the existing stair including all doors (but excluding glazing to a bathroom or W.C.) should be fire-resisting (i.e. wired glass)
- The new storey should be separated from the rest of the house by fire-resisting construction.
- Escape windows should be provided so that escape by means of a ladder from the ground may be possible. Therefore rooms should have an openable window or skylight. A door to a roof terrace is also acceptable.
Fire Safety - Flats and Maisonettes
Requirements are very similar to those described for a dwelling house but with the following exceptions:
- A flat or maisonette on more than one level should be treated as a house with more than one storey
- Smoke alarm requirements do not include common parts of the building and inter-linking of alarms does not apply between individual properties
