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Ideas for church egress through fenced playground area?

P

PatrickGSR94

Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2016
Messages
55
Location
Mississippi
Working on a church doing an addition and renovations. They have an existing covered driveway that they want to fence and put playground equipment. The issue is that I have 2 different egress doors coming out to this area. We have a double gate shown in the fence that could have panic hardware, but the issue is that kids could simply push on the panic bars to open the gates. If we could have something up higher like pool gate latches, that would work better, but I don't think that would work for egress hardware. The calculated potential occupant load coming through the double gate is around 115 people.

Any suggestions?
 
my250r11 said:
Time delayed with alarm??
Click to expand...

My local Health Department requires day care exterior doors to be alarmed if not opening to a controlled/ fenced area. Most day cares have a shoestring budget so we typically glue a basic audible alarm on it, in lieu of the typical time delayed/ alarmed hardware you would normally see, to save cost.
 
But there will be people going in and out of the building exterior doors when the building is in use. It's the gates on the enclosed area I'm wondering about. Are you suggesting an audible alarm on the gates?
 
Can the fenced in area meet the "Safe Dispersal Area" requirements?

1028.5 Access to a public way.
The exit discharge shall provide a direct and unobstructed access to a public way.

Exception: Where access to a public way cannot be provided, a safe dispersal area shall be provided where all of the following are met:

1. The area shall be of a size to accommodate not less than 5 square feet (0.46 m2) for each person.

2. The area shall be located on the same lot not less than 50 feet (15 240 mm) away from the building requiring egress.

3. The area shall be permanently maintained and identified as a safe dispersal area.

4. The area shall be provided with a safe and unobstructed path of travel from the building.
 
Unfortunately no, most of it is under the existing roof canopy (attached to building), and is less than 50' away from the building.
 
Even if the gates are resolved, is an enclosed playground going to be a code-compliant exit discharge for the building (direct and unobstructed access to a public way)?
 
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