Fire escape routes

[Guest Craig]

Hi Guys 

I just need a little advice on escape routes from a 4 storey building. It’s a heritage building and we’ve got 4 stairwells, 2 of which are protected stairwells - 1 protected at the NE corner of the building and 1 protected at the SE corner of the building. There’s then 1 stairwell in the NW corner and 1 stairwell in the SW corner of the building, these 2 are not protected and only run from the 1st floor to the 4th floor (they don’t lead to a place of relative or total safety). The 2 protected stairwells run from the ground to the 4th floor. 

 

My thinking is we should only be using the protected stairwells as our escape routes as these lead to a place of relative safety and take us out to a place of total safety... if we were to use the unprotected stairwells from the upper floors it would lead us out onto the first floor with still a way to travel to safety! 

 

Travel distance isn’t an issue to the protected stairwells because we’ve got fire doors mid corridor.

 

We’ve currently got exit signs above every stairwell and I don’t think this is right! Can someone please advise?

 

Thank you

[Tom Sutton]

I cannot advise if the means of escape is satisfactory without a full survey but only escape routes/stairs that lead to a place of safety should be signed with fire exit signs because when you enter the staircase you should remain in a protected route until you reach ultimate safety.