Padlocking of exit doors in almost empty venue

[Ynot]

You're right, Brian, it's neither complex nor onerous BUT in a large building with many exits, it CAN be time consuming. And for whatever reasons, it is VERY easy for complacency to creep in simply because the employee with the responsibility for opening the building to simply feel that they cannot be @rsed to go round every exit removing chains because 'oh, there's only a handful of people in'.

Do you think, therefore, that overhead rigging should be banned because someone might get complacent and forget to put the safeties on?

Of course not but that is hardly a comparable example, is it...?

Although as we know from examples of where things have gone wrong, overhead rigging is most certainly dangerous, and complacency in such cases is withoubt doubt something also to be avoided.

 

But with my example of a large building with chained exits, it only takes a bored key-holder to satisfy the conditions for potential disaster...

 

Complacency is actually gross misconduct in this situation, surely? Removing the chains and padlocks is standard practice is many venues of all kinds, and simply needs managing by the people who are legally responsible. If these people are idiots, and may forget, or forget to check, then somebody is responsible and it's their fault. Who cares if it's time consuming, or in the case of old chains that are rusty - even if removal is dirty? Somebody has to empty the rubbish, hoover floors and clean toilets - none of which are exactly jobs with much satisfaction, but they are important and essential jobs.

It's not always the case that those in a position of responsibility actually take that responsibility seriously. And that is where eventually the potential for something going wrong increases.

 

Sorry, guys, but no-one has yet given a cast iron reason why any venue or workplace should at any time NEED to chain the crash bars of emergency exits. Simply saying it is an additional preventitive against burglary just doesn't cut it with me. Serious thefts from commercial properties will be carried out by career criminals who will likely have scoped out the premises, and know that these chains are in place and they'll go in eqipped to deal with that hindrance to their activities.

[Andrew Edwards]

I think Tony has made salient point and that is the safety of the fire crew.

 

I would wager that if an arriving crew manager was told that some of the emergency exits were chained shut then it would be unlikely that they would send any of the crew into that building or area thereof. Especially if there a no persons reported.

 

Nowadays, unoccupied burning building are less frequently entered by fire crew and the fire is tackled from the outside. If the risk to the crew is elevated, then I would say it is a certainty.

 

You could almost say that there is a possibility that your building may not be 'saved' as much as it could if you have hampered the ability for the fire crew to tackle the blaze from multiple locations easily.

 

Village halls perhaps not so much but labyrinthine venues...

 

Of course there are countless instances where fire crews could be hampered by locked doors that are not fire exits and these doors could be locked at any time. However, I suspect that many of these doors could be jemmied open from the outside much quicker. And yes, if a building is 'fort knox' then you are going to be aware that a fire is more likely to gut it and thus pay the premiums for that.

[ramdram]

IIRC there is a case in the courts concerning a Fire Chief(?) sending his crew into an empty building (and known to be) where they died.

 

I would hazard a guess that if you mentioned some of the escape doors were chained shut to the Fire Chief bod on his arrival he would think twice before sending his crew into a building...on the premise fire escapes are for everyone, not excluding firemen.

 

If contractors enter a building and are obliged to follow a cable, say, then who knows where they might end up...possibly in a part of a building with chained up exits.

 

To repeat, it is all very well for some faceless rule maker to decide how many doors should be open with a reduced number of people inside,cf a "normal house" but if any and all exits are available you don't need to worry who went where.

[adam2]

In the venue in question, the main fire exits are clrealy visable to the public, not for example round a corner or along a passage.

If someone forgot to remove the chains, this would be obvious and the customers would remind them. Though AFAIK this has never happened.

Notices have recently been applied to the 4 main fire exits "THIS DOOR MUST BE UNLOCKED WHEN THE PUBLIC ARE ON THE PREMISES"

 

Whilst an exit through a kitchen is not ideal, the "kitchen" is very small, the door from the hall, and the final exit to the outside are opposite each other and only about 2M apart. The door from the kitchen to the hall does not lock.

 

The emergency lighting was generally defective but has now been totally renewed.

The emergency lightis over the secondary exits are maintained, lit 24/7.

 

The remainder of the emergency lighting consists of switched maintained exit signs over the 4 main fire exits and the front doors, switched maintained bulkheads lighting the open area, and non maintained twin spot fittings.

A central switch turns on all the maintained emergency lighting, and should be turned on when the public are on the premises, by the same person who removes the chains from the doors.

[Owain]

In the venue in question, the main fire exits are clrealy visable to the public, not for example round a corner or along a passage.

If someone forgot to remove the chains, this would be obvious and the customers would remind them.

 

I disagree. You have to assume customers are stupid and/or disinterested. They generally are.

 

 

I recently had correspondence with the local council where not only was a missing fire extinguisher on their premises reported twice (by me, none of the staff noticed or gave a damn) with no action being taken (it was not replaced until 11 weeks later), but the fact that it was missing was not noticed by the assessor carrying out a Fire Risk Assessment / inspection.

 

 

[ramdram]

That is interesting ref the assessor "appearing" not to notice stuff.

 

The one we had was more interested in our paperwork (we were "awarded" Broadly Compliant). He did not trouble to even glance into the plant room or check the type or number or location of extinguishers, or check the safety lighting or check to see if the blacks were fireproofed or anything "tangible" in fact.

 

He was simply checking our paperwork...I suspect too he allowed himself (and humoured us) to be shown around our site because he knew we had been busy erecting signs etc, etc, etc.

 

We gathered that all the fire safety stuff was down to us, or a hired in consultant (and their opinions vary quite a bit believe you me...) in that we were ultimately responsible for everything on site, which, when you think about it, is not unreasonable.

 

He did say that their advisory policy had changed because of court cases in which advice the F&R had given to whomever had been challenged and found to be unsatisfactory!

 

I am wondering therefore if the F&R bods are more interested in fighting a fire; a situation of which they do have control over, compared to ensuring that fire bottles and other kit are kept "properly" and this other situation of which they have no control over at all.

 

In fact as I type I wonder if all the F&R bods want "us" to do is FOO and leave it all up to them, on the premise an hour's playing around with a fire bottle extinguishing a flame burning over water is of very little practical use whatsoever and might inspire overconfidence in us untrained Fireman Sams.

 

It seems another colleague of his would be visiting to inspect our site...not for us per se but for the F&R Services' RA and action plan if they are obliged to visit. The info is collated and an action plan is evolved for fighting any fires. This info is "computerized" and can be accessed by a terminal (as he termed it) on any appliance obliged to visit.

 

Things like the testing the water pressure in the fire hydrant and access for their vehicles along our backstage access lane were much more to the fore.

 

We did ask for any advice regarding the storage of pyros and was assured their "expert" would be in touch...that was weeks ago. Too busy with real work probably.

 

And, getting back on topic (ahem) it is probably best to "reconsider" all this advice on the number of usable fire exits/escapes, call them what you will, ref the number of folk in the building and just see they are ALL available so "we" can FOO and the F&R bods have one less concern about finding and evacuating "us", trapped by a chained exit door.

[Andrew Edwards]

Adam, I don't think that forgetting to remove the chains when the punters are in is the issue here.

 

My concern is the policy not to remove them during low occupancy. I am struggling to find any justification. How hard and time consuming is it to unlock and hang the chain on a convenient hook next to each exit.

 

Are all of the persons occupying the building during low occupancy employed by the Village Hall?

If not then you are either a contractor if paid, visitor if not or a member of the public. In all these cases any reasonable H+S policy would treat all these as members of the public when on site.

 

I would argue that any building which contains persons not in direct employment of the building management in fact contains members of the public. Therefore operations default to the public policy.

 

I appreciate this is a relatively small venue but Ian Amdram could still invite his family in when you are not looking and they haven't been through the drill.

 

That reminds me of when Ian Amdram wheeled an elderly relative through the stage to her seat rather then through the proper route which is through an adjacent door and shorter. Said elderly relative was very nearly wheeled into the pit...

 

It would seem that you have instigated a whole raft of improvements which is fantastic. Taking the chains off for any level of occupancy seems such an easy thing to do compared to all the other improvements, I can't see why the management are reluctant.

[kerry davies]

This topic is the reason I love BR, firmly opposing views, intelligently debated, causing me to question my own opinions, thanks. To kind of sum up;

He did say that their advisory policy had changed because of court cases in which advice the F&R had given to whomever had been challenged and found to be unsatisfactory!

What I said, the responsible person may take advice but in court they answer, F&R are not the final arbitrant.

From Brian's earlier post;

make sure that this does not compromise people’s ability to use the escape routes;

Any security measures used on final exit doors must not restrict their use in an emergency.

and

Any device that impedes people making good their escape, either by being unnecessarily complicated to manipulate or not being readily openable, will not be acceptable.

 

So taken with the use of the words "occupied building" rather than "building occupied by the public as well as other staff occupants" brings me down firmly on the side of the "No chains when anyone is in the building" camp.

 

Now this may or may not be the best solution but IMHO it is the only one which can guarantee a judge agrees with you, all others are legally risky. The safety aspects have been pretty well dealt with but I would refer back to the exercise whereby even those staff knowing the building well and with advance notice and fully clear exits would certainly have died in the confusion and sightlessness of a West End evac. I would heartily recommend some CS gas training where getting out of an unlocked garden shed is impossible for some.

[musht]

And there's a lot more of them, sadly

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fire_disasters_involving_barricaded_escape_routes

 

I've haven't read all of them but I'll wager they involve incidents when the public were in the building.

 

 

1911, not 1912, sorry, Empire Theatre fire is partly notable in that the 10 people killed were all performers or crew, the full house of 3000 evacuated safely because of the iron.

[Robin D]

As an aside, I was recently in one of the larger superstores of one of the big 4 food retailers, and noted that the emergency exit door adjacent to the restaurant was padlocked shut. This was on a Friday on a store that trades 24 hours a day from Monday morning. I asked for the duty manager who told me they had a problem with shoplifters going out that way! A phone call to the head office from my mobile brought the chains off in about 15 - 20 minutes, but I dread to think what would have happened had there had been a fire in the restaurant.

 

This same company lost a large supermarket to a fire not so many years ago.

 

So it's not just the theatre and events industry where individuals take decisions that put all our lives at unneccessary risk. I'm with Kerry and Andrew on this. If there is anyone in the building then all exits need to be available.

 

Edit: SPAG :-(

[Brian]

A question for all the 'never locked ever' camp...

 

When is a door a fire escape/emergency exit?

[ramdram]

Every single minute of every single day Brian.

[Brian]

Every single minute of every single day Brian.

So every door is a fire escape?

 

Take then the perfectly acceptable situation of a room with two doors, only one of which is required to be a fire escape to satisfy the appropriate rules.

[kerry davies]

Wrong answer, Ross, when it is designated as such. Access and egress doors may or may not be used as emergency exits but as Brian says, it's a fire exit when the ritual of The Naming of the Doors has been done.

 

Tonight's a good time, happy Solstice to all our readers.

[ramdram]

EVERY door, out of the building obviously, is a fire escape. The PO's question was about whether a nominated fire escape/exit door should be padlocked or not, and, if only a few folk were in a building should whoever is in charge of said building unlock all the fire exits or just a few...in line with some rule, which patently is not a terribly clever rule for all the reasons above.

 

The consensus appears to be that it is a better practice to open all doors on a "just in case" basis than just a few. "Better practice" is this sense being from the safety point of view, it being a given that if folk have the run of a building then they could be absolutely anywhere in the building, unless of course they were excluded from parts of the building by security doors say.

 

However, the OP mentioned nothing about internal security doors so the responses discounted any reference to such "barriers".

 

You might find it easier to consider that the rules or regs say you should have at least this number of doors for this number of people in the building, but, these same rules or regs do NOT say you may ONLY have those number of doors available. So if some of us feel that all the doors should be free and available in our own venues then that's for us to decide...especially if there's flames heating up my nether regions.

 

Just seen your post Kerry, whether or not the rules say this that or the other EVERY door, to the outside of a building is a means of escape, assuming it's not into a locked yard of course, but even then you are outside of the building and might gain a few minutes grace in which to be rescued.

 

You don't really mean that if a door is not designated then we can't use it? Can't really see some folk searching for the "right" door, with a fire up their backside, can you?