Evacuation arrangements
It is good to see a discussion on this area on the forum as it is an area
which is best solved by a mixture of management policy and building
adapatation - neither will work in isolation.
Management Action
The personal evacuation plan is extremely important. This document should
record the facilities in the building that the user will make use of when
s/he needs to escape. The user should be shown how the system works wherever
they are likely to ba in the building and agree that they have been shown
and are happy with their evacuation. The management (Health and Safety)
should also sign each scenarion and state that they are happy with the
arrangements - especially important is dispelling the myth that security is
going to enter a building in a state of alarm, or worse still, on fire -
they won't.
Are of Refuge
These MUST be designed to BS5588 part 8 and then the discussion about pagers
becomes irrelevant because a proper refuge will have communications
facilities built in - from the simple push switch to two way speech - this
being preferred. It should be remembered that bells are going off all around
and therefore we use car park intercom systems which have a higher wattage
output than most.
Because of worry of false alarms we advocate that the system is dead until
the fire alarm is triggered - and this reduces the nuisance calls.
Refuges must feel 'safe' and their use must be agreed with the Fire Services.
This is all felt to be infinately preferable, if well designed, to evac
chairs, which can cause injury, are expensive and will block the evacuation
route while they are being used.
Refuges must be designed to wirk for people with partial vision, hearing and
intellectual difficulties, as well as lack of inteligable speech - lotsgoes
into the design, and the installation must be consistent throughout.
Users should budget a minimum of stlg 1,000 per installed refuge to get an
appreciation of the level of specification that is needed.
Hopefully they will never be used, but they must be properly designed to
protect all users of the building!
I hope this is of some use - we are always looking for people who have taken
up the call and installed refuges and evac chairs, with comments good and
bad, so that we can disseminate this and convince more people to standardise
the facilities.
Regards
James
James Holmes-Siedle
Director
All Clear Designs Limited
3rd Floor, Cooper House
2 Michael Road
London SW6 2ER
Tel 0171 384 2950
Fax 0171 384 2951
email [log in to unmask]
Cserve 100451,3571
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