ETThompson
SAWHORSE
Hi
Trying to help out a colleague who may have gotten himself in a jam. And it also relates to Exit Access Stairs, so timely...
This is a bank building, 3 stories but with the top two floors shelled for future tenants. About 4,500sf per floor and 13,500 total. Use is "B", no sprinklers, Construction Type IIB. Ohio Building Code 2017 following the 2015 IBC.
Their main issue is they have a strange stair/elevator condition at one side (see attached diagrammatic plan). The other stair is a normal, 1-hour enclosed exit stair.
The condition with issues is this adjacent stair and elevator. At the top level, the stair is enclosed with 1-hour rated walls. This is needed because, I guess, this is considered an exit access stairway, and as such can only connect 2 floors. The elevator on this floor opens into the shelled space but is the stair is protected, so no issue here (yet).
At the second floor, however, the stair and the elevator are both open to the shelled space. This is also true at the first/exit level, where both the stair and elevator are part of an unrated exit lobby.
The plans examiner is citing 3002.7 stating that an elevator cannot share a shaft enclosure with a stair. The examiner's comment is if the elevator opens on the first floor, it would share a common shaft with the open stair.
I can't see that the examiner is wrong, but would appreciate any thoughts and comments. I would guess the most likely fix would be a number of fire shutters, essentially walling off the elevator into a lobby, but I'm not very familiar with these and not sure how or if they'd impeded exiting more generally (shown dashed in my sketch). Does this seem like a viable solution? Any others possible? (Other than walling off and enclosing the stairs, which is possible but painful).
The plans examiner also brought up the challenges this arrangement makes for future tenants in a multi-tenant arrangement at levels 2 and 3...
Thanks for any help you can give.
Trying to help out a colleague who may have gotten himself in a jam. And it also relates to Exit Access Stairs, so timely...
This is a bank building, 3 stories but with the top two floors shelled for future tenants. About 4,500sf per floor and 13,500 total. Use is "B", no sprinklers, Construction Type IIB. Ohio Building Code 2017 following the 2015 IBC.
Their main issue is they have a strange stair/elevator condition at one side (see attached diagrammatic plan). The other stair is a normal, 1-hour enclosed exit stair.
The condition with issues is this adjacent stair and elevator. At the top level, the stair is enclosed with 1-hour rated walls. This is needed because, I guess, this is considered an exit access stairway, and as such can only connect 2 floors. The elevator on this floor opens into the shelled space but is the stair is protected, so no issue here (yet).
At the second floor, however, the stair and the elevator are both open to the shelled space. This is also true at the first/exit level, where both the stair and elevator are part of an unrated exit lobby.
The plans examiner is citing 3002.7 stating that an elevator cannot share a shaft enclosure with a stair. The examiner's comment is if the elevator opens on the first floor, it would share a common shaft with the open stair.
I can't see that the examiner is wrong, but would appreciate any thoughts and comments. I would guess the most likely fix would be a number of fire shutters, essentially walling off the elevator into a lobby, but I'm not very familiar with these and not sure how or if they'd impeded exiting more generally (shown dashed in my sketch). Does this seem like a viable solution? Any others possible? (Other than walling off and enclosing the stairs, which is possible but painful).
The plans examiner also brought up the challenges this arrangement makes for future tenants in a multi-tenant arrangement at levels 2 and 3...
Thanks for any help you can give.
