Please can someone advise us - we have a car park under our office block which holds 20 cars when full. Only used by staff and visitors to the offices. 

Car park has natural ventilation (grills) but is enclosed with an electrical powered roller shutter which is also the fire exit designated in the car park. 

There is a manual fire call point next to the roller shutter. 

Also, the shutter can be manually operated from inside the car park area using a chain. 

There are no doors next to the shutter, but another door in the car park access’s the internal stairway to avoid car park users having to go outside before going upstairs. 

Questions are;

a) should shutter be interfaced with fire alarm so it automatically opens upon actuation?

b) should shutter have power back up or is manually operated chain adequate?

c) should this be an exit for fire or should there also be a door next to it with some form of panic release mechanism?

See below image taken from inside car park area which hopefully gives clearer idea of the shutter in question. 

I think the shutter must have been added after sign off. I doubt anyone would have considered it an acceptable emergency exit at design stage. Added for security perhaps? Clearly fire safety usurped if the opening was indeed the original emergency escape.

9 hours ago, Lyledunn said:

I think the shutter must have been added after sign off. I doubt anyone would have considered it an acceptable emergency exit at design stage. Added for security perhaps? Clearly fire safety usurped if the opening was indeed the original emergency escape.

Ahhh....yes, that could well be the case!  It was built in 2006 and we cannot find the fire strategy document (if there ever was one) - we will check!  Thank you for that.

You would expect to see a separate door unless the car park is so small the single exit via the protected stair to the offices above is sufficient.

You can link the shutters, but the secondary supply is difficult and expensive to provide as often requires 240V or even 415v and rarely provided.

14 hours ago, AnthonyB said:

You would expect to see a separate door unless the car park is so small the single exit via the protected stair to the offices above is sufficient.

You can link the shutters, but the secondary supply is difficult and expensive to provide as often requires 240V or even 415v and rarely provided.

Thank you AnthonyB.

Yes, it is a fairly small car park (20 spaces) but we were just worried that sending people in to the protected stairway may be sending them further into the building, whereas if they could exit directly from the car park (either via an exit doorway or somehow upgrading the shutter) it would prove better / safer?

If the protected route correctly terminates in a final exit it's no different to leaving an office floor to enter the stair.

Nothing wrong with adding an extra final exit from the car park if you want though.