Fire Exits

I live in a rented room on the ground floor of a house. I have a fire door on my room which opens up into the kitchen. I then have to go through the hallway and another door to get to my front door. I have a large window in my room however this is blocked by a neighbours caravan which is parked on their driveway which happens to be by the side of the house. I cannot open the window more than a few inches and definitely would not be able to escape via the window if there was a fire in the kitchen. Do I need to report this to my landlord - if so is there anything we can do about the caravan parked outside even though it is on the neighbours property? Does my landlord …

Some advice please. I have a set of patio doors in a ground floor bedroom with a lip, that a support worker with a wheelchair user struggled to get over in a recent evacuation drill. Can i have a small removable rubber or metal ramp that is put down in the event of an emergency? Does it have to be fixed at all times? The bedroom is pretty small, the tenant has 24/7 care.

I know this is a common question and I have looked through some of the old posts to see if anything similar to my issue has been posted. We occupy an office within a large office block full of different users / companies. Although we are on the ground floor due to the design of the building (being on a slope) our nearest fire exit is 10m along the corridor then up a 15 ft stairwell to the fire escape , which is fine for an able bodied person, the other exit is along a corridor which leads to the reception area and out , to the reception area (length of the corridor is about 45M, then another 10M to the outside (55M in total). I'm unsure what other people ge…

We have a show once a week which involved two fire eaters on stage. They drink the fuel and then spit it out into the air. Obviously, some of the fuel goes onto the floor when they spit it out and has to be wiped up after their performance. The stage has wooden boarding on it and I am concerned about the mixture of fuel, wood and of course fire. I have been assured that this is ok but I am not convinced. Are there any special or additional measures that should be in place for this.

We are in negotiations to take over a new unit. The unit is 5 metres wide an 16 long. There is only one entry/exit point which is at the front.See attached for rough plans The plan would be to have a semi open kitchen at the rear end with the seating at the front, seperated by a glass partition. All equipment which has the largest fire hazard would be on the rear wall. Is the one entrance at the front ok for fire safety It leads straight to the outside?

i replaced my old and very dangerous fire exit stairs to my flat with a fire reg one . now the council want to take it down because its to big ,but if i make it smaller it will no comply with building regs . it has being past by building control. if the stairs are taken down i will not have no way to get out in a fire . does heath and safe over rule this. i have a building control cert for it but they have rejected my planning permission as the council want me to remove the stair this week and will not let me appeal . what are my options.

Hi im a health and safety officer at work and im a bit confused about the pushbar fire exit rules. I know they can be left open for ventilation purposes but i need to know if the door is open can and are you aload to use that door as an entry door which leads onto a marked walkway? Thanks for any info u can share.

Our office has 9 fire exits, for up to 50 users (including visitors etc). The alarm system on one of the doors is not working. Can we temporarily lock this door and no longer use it as a fire door until we can resolve the alarm issue? obviously with clearly updated signage on the door and on all notice boards and with explicit consultation with the employees and visitors. The next available door is within meters, through one unlocked door, if unavailable (i.e. if that's where the fire is) another door is available about 5 meters away in the other direction.

Hello, Hope you can help. We are building a new fire escape route in a strip of land, down the side of a car park, that will exit out into a public park. This will effectively be a fenced corridor that will lead to the park. How wide does that passage have to be? Are there any requirements for the flooring... can it be gravelled or does it have to be concreted/paved? Are there any requirements for the exit gate into the park? Width? Can it be a wooden gate? Does there have to be any specific handle/opening mechanism? Best wishes Hazel.

Hi was wondering if someone can help me. We moved onto a property 10 years ago. The property leads onto a enclosed back yard. Our next door Neighbour only has a roof terrace so only one entrance into the property. The owners agreed a back door would be installed in our neighbour property that would lead into our yard. This door would be used in the event of a fire. It is not a communal property. New tenants have moved in and leave the door open for ventilation. I have expressed my concerns with there letting agent that this is a safety risk for me as I have small children who could enter there property. The letting agent says they can open the door for ventilation as th…

we manage a property which is a multi--tenanted office block, with different escape route for the basement tenant. There are rear of the building fire escape stairs, leading to a door which apparently releases when the fire alarm goes off. The door opens outwards onto the fire escape landing outside, which is not ideal, but worse is that on the inside there is a thumb lock which is kept locked for security purposes. Therefore this escape route is completely useless unless we can find some sort of means by which the people escaping can actually access this door and go down the main staircase and out of the front door, and also to maintain the integrity of security with…

I have a three storey guest house which has 7 guest rooms which has a fire escape and each floor is a fire compartment, but all the neighbouring guest houses do not have fire escapes just internal compartments just curious as to how that would work for them in the event of a fire it just doesn’t seem safe, could you please help me understand the legality of this ?

We are administrators of a village hall which has it’s own car park. The building next door is used by a playgroup .They have a fire exit which leads directly on to our car park. We are getting the car park lined soon. If we put a no parking yellow marked area of about a car width from their exit to a safe area would this be acceptable for an escape route?

i went in to my local sports world and noticed fire exit doors locked with plastic tie raps

Morning, We are replacing the main entrance door of our church/community centre, and would like to clarify what operating devices may be suitable. The current door is a double door operated by a lever handle on a mortise latch. As the door exits onto a car park we want to control children escaping the building, and the handle is therefore about four feet or so off the floor to stop children using it. We would ideally prefer to retain this operation, but I am unsure of the legality of this from a fire escape point of view. The main entrance door goes into a lobby area. Three of the rooms, leading off this lobby area have their own fire exit doors directly…

Four storey block of flats with one protected stair and effective lobby protection and openable smoke window on top floor. Problem is the possibility of the protected stair being compromised by a fire in adjoining flats which are at right angles to the stair windows (Lower part PVC Fascia, upper non fire resting glazing) and is within about 0.5 m. Reference to the building regulations B1 para 5.24 states a minimum distance of 1.8 m or ensure that the windows to the stair have fire resistance. The evacuation policy is 'stay put'. Would it be reasonably practicable to make up the windows to achieve 30 mins as there must be 100's of buildings like this.

Ladies and gents, One of the senior managers in my workplace tells me that we are allowed to 'lose' one fire exit, he is referring to a fire exit that is partially obstructed and I have taken issue with this. I think he is getting confused with the fact that during a fire, we should assume that we will lose a fire exit due to the fire. Am I right in assuming that EVERY fire exit should be clear, unobstructed and available at the start of any event as per Article 14 of the RRFSO 2005.

Hi, we have a fire exit that opens from a workshop into a car park using a push bar. Are we allowed to have a drop of less than 6" on the exit before the car park floor? I am looking through the regulations but I can't seem to find anything that mentions a change in surface height for fire exits.

I have receive notification from my housing association that they are going to remove the stair lifts from all of their communal properties that are fitted with a stair case width of less than 1 meter. This is going to cause a lot of hardship for tenants with mobility problems. The reason for the removal of the stair lifts is because it is a fire safety hazard and will cause an obstruction in the event of a fire. My question is yes in a perfect world staircases should have no obstructions at all but in reality this is very difficult, is there a new regulation that now enforces the removal of stair lifts since the Grenfall Tower tragedy which the housing associatio…

Ive just taken over as the govener for H&S at my kids playschool. its a small single story building comprising of 3 linked rooms with a fire exit at either end. Both fire exits are locked the an old style mortise lock (the large key type) which is hung up on a nail on the back of the door in question. Also there is a security chain at high level fitted to the door to stop any escaping kids (The kind fitted to flats) is this acceptable? or should it have a single means of exit such as a strike bar? however the door also opens inwards.

Hi and Thanks for taking the time to answer my enquiry. I work in a school and I`m being asked to frosted the glass out on a final fire exit door. It is on a special needs unit and there is a fear of flight from some of the children as they can see the gate in which they come through when they arrive to school. Hope you can help thanks in advance Dave M

Morning, hope you can help with a query. A fire risk assessment has highlighted an issue with a teaching lab in our college. The lab accomodates up to 100 students The lab has 2 double exit doors which lead to a lobby area The max travel distance from the lab to the doors leading to the protected stairwell is 35m Area is referred to as normal risk Would you consider the following statement from the FRA to be correct? The main lab on the first floor has the capacity to hold up to 100 occupants. While it has two entrance doors these both lead to the same lobby and therefore cannot be considered alternative exits. Approved Document Part…

Hi all, just looking for some input please. I've just started working for a company within a 3 story building. Each floor has a large open planned office with a stairwell at either end of room - one is the main stairwell and the other stairwell is used in the event of a fire. The doors to the stairwell used in the even of a fire are fire doors and are suitably labelled. However, on the other side of the doors there are no handles, rendering re-entry to the office impossible were you to be in the stairwell. There is, of course, an eventual fire exit at the foot of the stairwell but what if there was a fire blocking it? You would be trapped in the stairwell as yo…

We share a courtyard with a company behind us and they are looking to build a fence to mask our air conditioning units. Our fire escape opens into this courtyard and they want to include a hinged gate to allow us access into the courtyard. My opinion is that this is illegal and that we should have immediate access into this area and not have to open an adjacency gate as a means of escape Am I right ? Ladbros

Would you please advise on positioning of Fire Exit Sign please. We have the usual sign over door but are considering putting it a little higher over the door, leaving space to see through the door at the top via a half-moon glass window above the door. Would this be acceptable please?