AnthonyB

Ignore the extinguisher company, they just want to sell extinguishers. I remove hundreds of unnecessary extinguishers from stairway annually - the stairs contain no risk, but the floors do for which you have sufficient. If you have Water Mist there is no point in having the CO2 either. If your electrical cupboard has a Water Mist within 10m you don't need an additional extinguisher, also a 5kg CO2 would be overkill for a typical small office distribution room, either 2kg CO2 or for consistency you could stick a Water Mist outside. The whole point of Water Mist is it's safe for direct use on electrical fires up to 1000V so you don't have to have additional CO2 extinguishers. BS5306-8 is not law, it's just guidance and it's the fire risk assessment that makes the decision on requirements based on risk not prescriptive standards.

It's not perfect but yes - is there any other way to empty the bins? If there is no goods life then it leaves the stairs.

I assume it's yet another purpose built block with call points and sounders that weren't actually needed, the fire officer is correct and will be referring back to the current standards in Building Regulations and the Fire Safety guidance for Purpose Built flats.

Sounds like it would make the stairs dangerous in any use, so the Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and the The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 would have relevant application in addition to consideration of any fire safety breaches.

1. Possibly as they are converted. You would need to check with your Local Authority to see if they operate an additional HMO Licensing Scheme that may require them licensing. 2. Common areas, although the Housing Act applies to the whole premises and an inspection for compliance with this may be in order. 3. The Fire Service or LA Housing EHO may give advice, but then again some may refer you back to your FRA. A competent risk assessor will be able to give clear detailed advice on the type of system required as part of an FRA. 4. Difficult to say (& one of the weaknesses of the legislation).There is no employer, so it falls down to either the landlord or a person having , to any extent, of the premises. Richard Mackey's company does FRAs in London and may be able to help,tell him I gave you his details. http://www.completefireprotection.com/contact-us/42/ Too far away for me to help you sadly!

Usually 500mm.

The Fire Safety Order has provisions for this, but only with respect to ,employees. Traditionally, as fire legislation over the years has had limited provisions for individuals messing around with fire precaution features Article 8 of the Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974 is cited: 8 Duty not to interfere with or misuse things provided pursuant to certain provisions. No person shall intentionally or recklessly interfere with or misuse anything provided in the interests of health, safety or welfare in pursuance of any of the relevant statutory provisions. This has the advantage of not limiting to employees. However, it's rarely used in practice and sometimes Criminal Damage has been used instead. Very unlikely to get HSE or CPS authorising a charge where no real harm or expense was caused, exclusions and expulsions are more achievable for persistence offenders. As an initial step, if not already done, you should fit hinged covers to your call points. More extreme (but not unheard of) solutions are altering the cause & effect of the system so that a single publicly located call point doesn't cause a full evacuation, only detectors or staff area call points;and moving to key operated call points in public areas.

Depends on the scope of the FRA. If strictly for Fire Safety Order compliance then it's outside the scope of that legislation. If it was also for the purposes of the Housing Act then it may well be a necessary remedial action, but for the landlord, not the tenant.

Technically it can be, it would breach Article 14 of the The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which is Criminal Law, with fines and imprisonment as options on conviction. Emergency routes and exits 14.—(1) Where necessary in order to safeguard the safety of relevant persons, the responsible person must ensure that routes to emergency exits from premises and the exits themselves are kept clear at all times. Staff who place items in the way could be seen to breach Article 23 as well.

No, regardless of whether it's stay put or full evacuate.

Looks like a modified version of the stay put fire procedure example in the flats guide which sort of blows the exit width excuse for withdrawing the stair lift out of the water. Actions in FRA's should be graded in levels of importance and it's common to give a suggested time frame too - this helps with budgets and prioritisation of works based on risk.

Possibly if full evacuation, but as the premises appears to be built as stay put & doesn't have a suitable and sufficient fire detection and warning system for full evacuate it's irrelevant as you aren't going to have everyone leaving at any one time anyway and the numbers involved even so are negligible.

There are some parties that say you are not allowed to upgrade doors and must replace them as the resulting combination of an old uncertified leaf and new seals has not been tested. Personally if upgrading I would try and retrofit seals to the frame not the door.

BS 1877 was first published in 1952 and has been sporadically reissued over the decades, which means it is potentially old enough to date back to when asbestos was still in common use, it's a pity it doesn't cite which edition.

Theatres Guide p 72 "If temporary seating is provided, these should be secured in lengths of not fewer than four seats (and not more than 12). Each length should be fixed to the floor" Large Places of Assembly Guide p67; Small & Medium Places of Assembly Guide p60 "In general, no seat should be more than seven seats away from a gangway. If temporary seating is provided, these should be secured in lengths of not fewer than four seats (and not more than 12). Each length should be fixed to the floor" Not always enforced as vigorously as when fire safety formed part of the Theatre, Dance or Entertainment License requirements back in the day though.

BS9999 is an architect's/designers standard as an alternative to the Guidance in Approved Document B for new buildings or refurbishments of existing buildings. It is not a risk assessment guide for existing premises, unless that premises meets all parts of the guide - you can't just cherry pick the travel distances. Sounds like an example of initial dead end (be it room or corridor) where you can only travel in one direction and need to reach either a storey exit or part of the route where you can split in two directions before the single escape distance limits are exceeded.

No as the system is too basic to accommodate such a function - you usually only get a head removal fault on commercial premises fire alarm system equipment (as is used where Grade A residential fire alarms are required)

Sounds like a stay put block where the alarm system is there for the purposes of operating smoke control and has no sounders (or had them removed), but they left the call points. Is the alarm monitored? The FRA should detail the rationale behind the set up - it isn't automatically wrong.

The linked page only covers commercial fire alarms - you appear to have Grade D residential smoke alarms installed (Which aren't required in the first place, if communal warning was needed a commercial system would be used) for which the only test regime (BS5839-6) is weekly testing using the test button and periodic cleaning of the detectors as per manufacturer's instructions (usually 6 monthly)

A lot of residential premises were wrongly fitted or retrofitted with common residential smoke alarms or full fire alarm systems, so removal is not necessarily incorrect. However the fire sterile nature of common parts does not automatically mean some form of site wide system isn't needed - as Tom says if the compartmentation of the flats is poor then something may be required - the FRA should detail what is/isn't needed and why.

If it's for extinguishers you need Nitrogen, which you would hire from BOC or Air Products, or rent on a deposit basis (like Calor gas) from places like Adams Gas. You can buy outright a Nitrogen cylinder from some fire trade suppliers, but filling can then be an issue. I assume you've got all the other consumables,components and training required?

You can do what you want but of the 250 - 300 people killed by fire each year almost all die in their home and most of those have no, insufficient or nonworking alarms - I'd get them working/replaced as reliance on Grade F (battery only) alarms as oppose to Grade D (mains and battery) increases the chance of them not being in working order when needed.

Can't fail secure on a power failure if required as an emergency exit. That's why access control systems have back up power supply units next to each door in order to keep it secure if the mains fails. The installation should meet BS7273-4 and would usually fail safe on power failure, fire alarm activation & via a green breakglass unit next to the door that operates a double pole isolator on the doors power supply causing fail safe release.

Not required as not subject to the Fire Safety Order nor opening onto any areas where it does apply. There is also no legal requirement for an asbestos survey either in domestic premises.

Single stair with just a front and back door? If so you would usually only need the one door, the second door is usually part of an accommodation route to access car parks, bin stores, etc as oppose to a required alternative.