Fire safety

seven-day-weekend

Our house in the UK is lived in by our son and two other young men.

It was built in 1857. with a second-floor room in the roof (not a conversion). Consequently, it complies with none of the modern-day Building Regulations. There is a proper staircase to the attic room.

However I have assessed to the best of my ability the fire risks and have taken what I think are appropriate measures. If the firefighter on here could comment on them, I would be grateful.

There is a smoke alarm on all floors (cellar, ground floor, first floor and attic room). There is a CO detector in the kitchen, where the boiler and gas hob are (the only two gas appliances). Also in the kitchen is a fire blanket and extinguisher. The CO detector was fitted by a bloke from British Gas when he issued the Lanldord's Safety Certificate for the boiler. Most of the smoke alarms are the ten-year ones given by the fire brigade.

In the lodgers' rooms, both have large opening windows. One even opens out onto a flat roof. The other one opens wide enough to throw out a mattress.

In my son's room in the attic, there is a velux window which is big enough for him to get out of and I have bought a fire escape ladder made for velux windows. In the event of a fire he would hook it over the bottom of the window, throw it out and it goes all down the roof and nearly to the ground.

My son has a landline in his bedroom, there is another one in the dining room and they all have mobiles.

The doors on the house are original pine and the occupants never close any of them.

I think I've done the best I can, but would welcome advice. Thanks.

andyrules

I've been following this with interest as I posted recently with a similar query.

Tim, you've mentioned blocking the door and escaping from a window - but almost all of the new/recent builds here have the windows which will only open enough for ventilation - and that is at the top - impossible to use as escape route. In some cases, they have one upstairs opener - in almost all cases over the conservatory!

How do these get past regs? Worse, I rang local FB for advice and they said that you don't need an upstairs fire escape, just good preventative methods and smoke alarms. Is this the latest in H&S?

Tim_Deegan

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Our house in the UK is lived in by our son and two other young men.

It was built in 1857. with a second-floor room in the roof (not a conversion). Consequently, it complies with none of the modern-day Building Regulations. There is a proper staircase to the attic room.

However I have assessed to the best of my ability the fire risks and have taken what I think are appropriate measures. If the firefighter on here could comment on them, I would be grateful.

There is a smoke alarm on all floors (cellar, ground floor, first floor and attic room). There is a CO detector in the kitchen, where the boiler and gas hob are (the only two gas appliances). Also in the kitchen is a fire blanket and extinguisher. The CO detector was fitted by a bloke from British Gas when he issued the Lanldord's Safety Certificate for the boiler. Most of the smoke alarms are the ten-year ones given by the fire brigade.

In the lodgers' rooms, both have large opening windows. One even opens out onto a flat roof. The other one opens wide enough to throw out a mattress.

In my son's room in the attic, there is a velux window which is big enough for him to get out of and I have bought a fire escape ladder made for velux windows. In the event of a fire he would hook it over the bottom of the window, throw it out and it goes all down the roof and nearly to the ground.

My son has a landline in his bedroom, there is another one in the dining room and they all have mobiles.

The doors on the house are original pine and the occupants never close any of them.

I think I've done the best I can, but would welcome advice. Thanks.

It sounds like you have done far more than many people. The only thing that could improve things is if you talked the occupants into closing the doors at night.

Tim_Deegan

andyrules wrote: »

I've been following this with interest as I posted recently with a similar query.

Tim, you've mentioned blocking the door and escaping from a window - but almost all of the new/recent builds here have the windows which will only open enough for ventilation - and that is at the top - impossible to use as escape route. In some cases, they have one upstairs opener - in almost all cases over the conservatory!

How do these get past regs? Worse, I rang local FB for advice and they said that you don't need an upstairs fire escape, just good preventative methods and smoke alarms. Is this the latest in H&S?

I'm not sure about the exact building regs. We just give out advice, and if people want to go into more detail then we would normally refer them to the fire safety department. If they are new builds then try contacting building control at the council.

There is often a way of releasing the sliders so that the windows will open fully.

telfordwhite

guppy wrote: »

As I said before...how many deaths does it take to justify a given safety measure? One, five, a hundred? Where should the line be drawn between convenience and safety?

Believe it or not I actually agree with you on this,it is a case of where you draw the line.

Smoke alarms? Fire escapes? Door closers? Heating? Cookers? Electricity?

I Have the first 2 but draw the line at door closers. Removing Gas and electricity from dwellings would save many many lives but of course nobody is suggesting that....yet.

I maintain that not having door closers in a house is an unproven and arguable risk. If my smoke alarm goes off (as I'm told it will with the smallest amount of smoke) I get woken up, grab the kids and escape from the nearest exit well before anyone gets hurt.

My attitude is not as some have suggested cavalier but simply common sense.

telfordwhite

Jonbvn wrote: »

I have worked in the oil industry for some time across the globe. As you can imagine HSE and fire safety are very important in my line of work. We don't have HSE because it is trendy and fashionable, but because it has been shown to reduce risk.

I view some posts regarding the inconvenience of life savings devices with some incredulity.

The last I looked, you only get one life. Don't die from ignorance.

Jon, we are talking about a 3 bed end terraced house here not an oil rig.

That is the problem with HSE, people oafishly lump standard regulations over the entire spectrum regardless of common sense.

Zebedee69

Wow, and I just thought you ran away realy quickly in a fire lol!

Tim_Deegan

telfordwhite wrote: »

Jon, we are talking about a 3 bed end terraced house here not an oil rig.

That is the problem with HSE, people oafishly lump standard regulations over the entire spectrum regardless of common sense.

We aren't talking about regulations, we are talking about common sense:

If you have smoke alarms and shut your doors or not won't make any difference if you never have a fire. BUT if you do have a fire the simple facts are that closing doors and having smake alarms will give you more time, and could save your life.

It's like wearing a crash helmet, or a seatbelt. They only help save your life when you have an accident.

I would just like to add something I didn't mention before:
It isn't just your bedroom door that you nmeed to shut. You need to shut any door that will protect your escape route.

Tim_Deegan

telfordwhite wrote: »

Believe it or not I actually agree with you on this,it is a case of where you draw the line.

Smoke alarms? Fire escapes? Door closers? Heating? Cookers? Electricity?

I Have the first 2 but draw the line at door closers. Removing Gas and electricity from dwellings would save many many lives but of course nobody is suggesting that....yet.

Unless building regs have changed very recently there is no requirement to have self closers in domestic private properties. However they are required in HMO's (houses of multiple occupancy) in order to protect escape routes.

If you lived in a multi storey HMO, and you left your bedroom door open when there was a fire in your room, then there is a good chance that you could kill people in the rooms above yours by allowing the smoke into their escape route.

telfordwhite wrote: »

I maintain that not having door closers in a house is an unproven and arguable risk. If my smoke alarm goes off (as I'm told it will with the smallest amount of smoke) I get woken up, grab the kids and escape from the nearest exit well before anyone gets hurt.

As I said door closers aren't required in private domestic properties.

If you were in a very deep sleep, or your smoke alarm failed to go off, or someone emptied a can of petrol through your letter box (it does happen), then closed doors could well save yours and your childrens lives.

What is so difficult about closing a door??

guppy

Zebedee69 wrote: »

Wow, and I just thought you ran away realy quickly in a fire lol!

Exactly.

The idea of fire doors is that you have a protected escape route to the outside in the event of a fire. If you're a deep sleeper in the loft and its already been burning for 10 minutes before you hear the smoke alarm and the house is full of sofa smoke you're screwed...

A fire is most likely to start inside a room, rather than a landing or hallway, so in a higher risk dwelling like an HMO or a three storey house, the rooms are supposed to be compartmentalised by firedoors. If a fire breaks out in a room, fire and smoke is hopefully contained long enough to allow people to escape, providing the doors are closed. The requirement for self-closers in houses has been removed from the latest building regs.

What people do in their own houses is up to them, they can judge the risks for themselves. Building regs and DIY are rarely an issue until it comes to selling a house anyway.

But surely it makes sense to require a minimum standard of fire safety from builders, landlords and developers, who otherwise have little incentive to provide any level of protection?

Part B of the B.Regs regarding fire safety is here by the way, for any geeks reading

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/uploads/br/BR_PDF_ADB1_2006.pdf