Who Can Draw Fire and Life Safety Plans

An engineer inspects the accordion fire door in accordance with the facility's life safe plans.

Photo courtesy of TLC Technology Solutions

The task of a health care facilities director is multifaceted and complex. Renovation projects, environment of care rounds, mock surveys, local fire marshal visits, state department of wellness inspections and accreditation surveys are all realities of this position.

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The success of whatever inspection tin can greatly depend on the accuracy of life prophylactic drawings. They provide the roadmap for the life safety features of the building. At a minimum, they should include locations of all fire and smoke barriers, shafts, leave stairs, passageways, horizontal exits, suite boundaries, smoke compartments, hazardous areas, sprinkler protection and occupancy separations, such as for health care, ambulatory intendance and concern.

When life rubber drawings show a storage room as a hazardous area with a one-hour fire barrier enclosure, the surveyor will wait to see a compliant 45-minute-rated door and walls that become to the structure with all penetrations properly sealed. If the drawings prove a 2-hr rated burn down bulwark, the surveyor will expect to see a compliant 90-minute door and a fire damper. In areas not identified as suites, the surveyor will expect to see a clear 8-foot corridor, with the exception of permitted wheeled equipment.

This is why it is so important to keep the drawings updated and accurate.

Living documents

Life safe drawings are living documents that must be continually updated as areas change use, walls are moved, doors are installed or removed, or the facility is altered in other ways. Most people will update the drawings during an add-on or renovation project; still, failing to keep the drawings updated with smaller changes can cause problems down the road.

An older mutual black-and-white version of a life safety symbol legend and a similar common-color version of a life condom symbol legend.

Graphics courtesy of TLC Applied science Solutions

Some facilities maintain their drawings with in-house staff, while other hospitals rely on outside consultants. Information technology is best practice to accept life safety drawings reviewed and updated on an annual or semiannual basis. Any changes in the interim can simply exist identified with a note on the drawings indicating the modify likewise as the appointment of the change. (Drawings should exist dated to reflect the final time they were reviewed or revised.)

Life rubber drawings require a lot of information. Still, overloading the drawings with too much information can brand them difficult to read; balance is cardinal, and different situations may require dissimilar information.

Drawings that are issued for a construction project may need to include more than data than the gear up of documents used as a living life safety document. For example, some country or local building or burn down officials may want to see all fire alarm devices, exit signs or portable fire extinguishers shown on the life prophylactic plans; but, depending on the size and scale of the drawings, these items may kickoff to obscure the necessary information.

Too, for a construction or renovation project, information technology is typical to show travel distances to exits, smoke barriers or suites. However, because these dimensions don't change in one case the walls and doors are in place, it is non necessary keep this information on the drawings.

Equally the field continues to evolve, health facilities professionals are seeing some simple and practical changes that address accuracy. Prior to the last decade, life safety drawings were printed every bit blueprints or black-and-white plots. Line types in the by were often a series of dots and dashes to differentiate between hourly ratings and whether the wall was for smoke or fire.

Colour drawings have now become mutual, greatly improving the legibility of the drawings and reducing the likelihood of errors. Other items that have helped improve readability are line styles, shading of suites, identification of hazardous areas using specific patterns and clearly identifying the smoke compartments.

Standard requirements

The National Fire Protection Association's NFPA 170, Standard for Fire Safety and Emergency Symbols, offers a national standard for architectural symbols and includes the line types for the list of fire and smoke barriers.

A life safety symbol legend using the NFPA 170 national standard for architectural symbols.

Graphics courtesy of TLC Engineering Solutions

Smoke compartments are delineated by smoke barriers; however, these compartments sometimes are difficult to discern, and the inclusion of a smoke compartment key plan tin can assist to clarify. This can also provide an overall picture of the larger and smaller compartments when planning emergency evacuation procedures. Another good idea is to list the smoke compartments with the associated area of each corresponding fume compartment.

An overall life safety plan for each floor is imperative to come across the large picture. For some facilities, the entire floor will fit on a unmarried sheet at a legible calibration. Larger facilities oft volition need to break up the floor plan onto multiple sheets with match lines to show the information at a legible scale. Either manner, information technology is practiced to have an overall floor program, with a cardinal, to show how the building is broken into the different sheets.

Suites are necessary when spaces are used to treat patients without separation from the circulation space (due east.thousand., merely a drapery separation such as a mail service-anesthesia care unit). Other times, the arrangement of the space may not require the area to exist treated equally a suite, but it may exist advantageous to make the area a suite based on the usage of the space and whether or not it complies with all of the suite requirements. This is often the example with an emergency department or an operating suite where corridor ataxia becomes hard to manage.

Chancy areas must be identified on the life safety drawings. These areas may include storage rooms of sure sizes, soiled holding rooms, boiler rooms, cardinal bulk laundry or physical establish maintenance shops (NFPA Table xviii/19.3.two.ane lists the specific areas that are classified as hazardous). In most cases, the hazardous areas in Affiliate 18 are enclosed with 1-60 minutes fire barriers and sprinkler protected (sprinklers are required for all new health care occupancies). These same areas in Chapter nineteen more often than not are enclosed with a 1-hour barrier or sprinkler protected and enclosed with a fume partition/cocky-closing, positive-latching door.

Storage space in hospitals is e'er at a premium, and at that place never seems to exist enough space for everything. It is not unusual for a team conducting an environment of care round to notice that what was one time an office is at present existence used for storage. Nether Affiliate 43 of NFPA 101^®, Life Safety Lawmaking^®, this would exist a change of use in an existing health care facility and would be permitted as long as the expanse of the room does not exceed 250 square anxiety, is protected throughout by automated sprinklers, and enclosed with a smoke partition and cocky-endmost, positive-latching door. This is a valuable compliance approach to apply for areas that have been converted to storage and practise not comply with the requirements for new construction.

A smoke compartment central plan can assist to clarify fume compartments and fume barriers

Graphics courtesy of TLC Engineering science SolutionsCredit goes here

Corridor walls frequently are a source of confusion because the term used in the Life Prophylactic Code is non defined and the term used in the International Building Code (IBC) has special exemptions for I-two occupancies. The Life Safety Lawmaking requires corridor walls (in fully sprinkler-protected buildings) to be constructed to "form a bulwark to limit the transfer of smoke." The IBC requires corridor walls to be "fume partitions" but and so adds an exception for corridor doors that states "shall not be required to be equipped with self-closing or automatic-closing devices, but shall provide an effective barrier to limit the transfer of fume and shall be equipped with positive latching."

The requirements in the 2 codes present conflicting requirements. The Life Safety Code allows corridor walls to stop at the ceiling as long the ceiling is "synthetic to limit the transfer of smoke." The question becomes, what should be the designation of these walls on the life condom drawings? To farther complicate the upshot, the Life Safety Code requires certain hazardous areas that are sprinklered (storage rooms less than 100 square anxiety only more than 50 foursquare feet in new construction) to exist synthetic with smoke partitions. The respond is not simple.

The plans for a construction or renovation project must be submitted to the authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) for review of both the building code and the Life Safety Lawmaking, so information technology must include the information for both codes too as any additional information (e.k., exit signs and fire alarm devices) required past the applicable AHJ. This set of living life condom documents is used for continued compliance with the Life Safety Lawmaking as opposed to the plans submitted for compliance with the building code at the time of construction. Because almost surveyors are inspecting the facility for compliance with the Life Rubber Code, the terminology from the Life Prophylactic Code should be used for the living life safety drawings.

Many hospitals today are protected throughout by automatic sprinkler protection in accordance with NFPA 13, Standard for the Installation of Sprinkler Systems. However, there are a number of hospitals that are only partially sprinklered and are working toward beingness fully sprinklered equally renovations occur. In these partially sprinklered facilities, it is essential to identify which areas are non notwithstanding sprinklered; this is unremarkably done by using a defined design over those areas. Unfortunately, these patterns on top of other patterns can brand the drawing more confusing. Coordination of the unlike patterns should be planned to let for clarity.

Code consultants assessing a facility often will recommend decommissioning rated burn down barriers or fume barriers. While this may be an choice, in many cases, care must be exercised before decommissioning any burn protection features. (The American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE) has developed a Life Safe Decommissioning Tool, which tin be accessed by ASHE members at ashe.org/decommissioning).

A smoke compartment cardinal programme can help to clarify fume compartments and fume barriers.

Graphics courtesy of TLC Engineering Solutions

The Life Safety Code states that "No existing life safe feature shall exist removed or reduced where such characteristic is a requirement for new structure." For example, a 300-square-foot storage room constructed as a hazardous area with a ane-hour fire barrier enclosure and sprinkler protection that was built in 2004 is now considered existing and would be subject to the requirements of Chapter xix. Under Chapter 19, this room would only require a fume partition because it is fully sprinklered. However, because this room was already constructed with a 1-hour burn down barrier enclosure, the rated enclosure must be maintained because that is what is required for new construction.

There are occasions when smaller smoke compartments tin be combined to reduce the amount of smoke barrier walls that need to exist maintained and smoke detection at smoke barrier doors that can exist eliminated. Again, care should exist exercised to ensure that all the requirements of the combined smoke compartment comply with the requirements under Chapter 18 and that there are no special weather condition that will be affected by combining the smoke compartments (e.thousand., atmospheric condition of an approved waiver). In add-on, the fire response procedures need to be reviewed and updated to verify they have been coordinated with the revised smoke compartment layout.

Life safe drawings can exist a useful tool in evaluating where special locking arrangements can exist used. Depending on whether the facility is using the special needs locking system from NFPA 18/19.two.2.2.5, delayed egress or admission control, the life safety drawings can assist determine compliance with all of the provisions. Because locking doors take become and so common, some facilities have started to denote the locking arrangements on the life safety drawings using different symbols for dissimilar locking types. This is not required, just in some cases can be helpful to understand exiting from the facility.

Because many hospitals today are designating portions of the facility every bit "ambulatory wellness care occupancy," "business organization occupancy" or fifty-fifty "factory/industrial occupancy" (in the case of the central energy institute), it is necessary to identify these occupancies on the life condom drawings and to testify the required occupancy fire separations. Once more, a small key plan located on the drawings indicating the unlike occupancies can provide clarity.

Although not required or commonly shown, a code summary can add together value to living life prophylactic documents.

Graphics courtesy of TLC Engineering science Solutions

Although not required or commonly shown, at that place are a few more items that can add value to living life safety documents. For instance, the building construction type should be noted on the drawings. Because a minimum building construction type is a requirement of the Life Rubber Code, information technology is important to document this information to show compliance. This as well will assistance in future projects when building additions or major renovations are desired. It also documents where previously approved waivers or special atmospheric condition approved by applicable AHJs accept been granted.

Living documents

The necessity of having a living life rubber document cannot be overstated by health facilities professionals.

While navigating through seemingly most-constant adjustments can experience precarious, and at times overwhelming, due diligence in mitigating mistakes and oversights is imperative.

As the field and all of its moving parts keep to evolve, being equipped to swiftly and sufficiently address changes equally they occur will continue these living documents alive and well.

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James Peterkin, PE, LEED AP, SASHE, is main, senior fire protection engineer and code consultant at TLC Engineering Solutions, based in Orlando, Fla. He can be contacted at jim.peterkin@tlc-eng.com.

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Source: https://www.hfmmagazine.com/articles/4226-maintaining-life-safety-drawings