Consulting-Specifying Engineer - February 2008 - (Page 41)

surfaces must be designed with the expectation of increasingly reduced mobility. Oxygen tanks and other medical equipment, essential to sustaining life, can make navigating corners and turns that much more difficult. Furniture and other decorative accents provide an ambiance of comfort, yet 60 in. of clearance must be maintained throughout all corridors in new construction. Designers also should be aware that board-and-care occupancies have specific means of egress requirements from NFPA 101, particularly those facilities that fall under the “large” classification. Another critical concept in the design of residential boardand-care facilities is time—it is the key to survival. Residents must have the time to recognize an emergency and time to respond within their capabilities. Adequate time to recognize and identify the emergency most often arises from working smoke and fire alarms. Smoke detection systems are required for all types of new construction and are required to be installed in the sleeping rooms of existing structures. One notable exception is that existing small boardand-care facilities with an approved fire protection system can omit the requirements for smoke alarms in accordance with NFPA 101-9.6.2.9, provided that smoke alarms are installed in each individual sleeping area. Protection systems must allow enough time to respond to an emergency in order to control a fire before it spreads. This also requires a means of egress that is tailored to meet the needs of the residents. In new construction of large facilities, corridors used as part of the means of egress system are required to have a 30-min fire rating. Travel distances are limited to 250 ft as a maximum and common paths of travel can be no more than 75 ft. Interior stairs, as are used for means of egress, fall under the general requirements of chapter 7.2. For large, existing construction, travel distances from a corridor door to the nearest exit cannot exceed 100 ft and the overall maximum travel distance cannot exceed 200 ft. Small facilities, on the other hand, have no travel distance limitations specific to the occupancy within the current code as long as they meet the minimum requirements for number and arrangement of exits. While the requirements of the Life Safety Code are often similar to those of the IBC, as a designer and engineer, you may one day thank the stars that you learned both standards. James Kaspar is an associate in the Phoenix office of Chicagobased Rolf Jensen & Assocs. Inc. Input #219 at csemag.com/quickResponse http://csemag.com/quickResponse http://www.cmcousa.com http://www.cmcousa.com http://www.cmcousa.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Consulting-Specifying Engineer - February 2008

Consulting-Specifying Engineer - February 2008 Contents Viewpoint News M/E Roundtable How To Write Control Sequences Mentoring Engineers: Myths, Motivations, and Models Keep Young Electrical Engineers Grounded Protecting a Vulnerable Population Codes & Standards Case Study New Products Equipment Lifecycles Advertisers Index Green Space

Consulting-Specifying Engineer - February 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.