Continuity of Fire Alarm

[Plumb-bob]

I have a building that is F-2 on ground floor with residential above.




Is the intent of sentence 4 "as if it were a separate building" to dis-allow occupancies on top of one another? In other words, a horizontal fire separation between the occupancies would be prohibited?

Happy Friday

 

[tmurray]

Yes, the exception would only apply to occupancies separated by a vertical separation. In theory, a horizontal separation would pose a greater risk for fire spread from the occupancy below to the one above and thus not able to take advantage of the same relaxation in the code.

 

[Plumb-bob]

Yes, the exception would only apply to occupancies separated by a vertical separation. In theory, a horizontal separation would pose a greater risk for fire spread from the occupancy below to the one above and thus not able to take advantage of the same relaxation in the code.

Thanks, I agree.

 

[Mac Moonfire]

May I suggest including the sentence of the text being quoted?

 

[Plumb-bob]

The situation is quite interesting:

We have a dilapidated building that the fire dept invited me into for an inspection, there is a host of life safety issues that we are dealing with.

Also, there is a combination of occupancy types that is prohibited- F-2 below and 4 residential suites above.

Our planner has declared the building to be unlawfully non conforming, which is a combination of words I have not heard too often. I believe this will disallow any talk of existing non conforming.

As part of our enforcement process I have required a building code review by an architect, and my original question is in regards to the content of the building code review. The document provided by the architect is not very impressive and has several errors and omissions.