300885 Building Regulation Studies

Published : 19-Sep,2021 | Views : 10

Question:

Discuss the statement “In Australia, all buildings must comply with the deemed to satisfy (DTS) provisions in the Building Code of Australia”. Illustrate your answer by referring What is an F.R.L. and what do the three numbers. Classify the following building below (figure 1) according the BCA and give the reasons for your answer.

Determine the ‘rise in storeys’ for the following building in give the reasons for your answer.According to the BCA, the external walls of a building are required to be fireresisting when they are exposed and close to a side or rear boundary. Contrast the two methods used to determine if a wall in a Class 1 and Class 2 building is exposed to a fire source feature.

Determine the fire resisting requirements for the external walls of the Class 2 building shown in the following site plan below (figure 4) and give the reasons for your answer. Determine whether the exits serving the sprinkler-protected office in are required to be fire isolated and provide the reasons for your answer. The building shown in Figure 5 (above) has typical floor area of 1250 m2

Determine whether the egress from the single storey building in complies with the BCA ‘travel distance’ requirements and provide the reasons for your answer.Determine the emergency lighting and exit sign requirements for the building
shown in Figure 6 above, and provide the reasons for your answer. The single storey factory building in comprises three (3) sole occupancy units, each being a separate fire compartment with a floor area of 400 m². Determine the fire hydrant and fire hose reel requirements for the building and provide the reasons for your answer.Outline which types of buildings must have sprinkler protection. Explain the rationale for sprinkler protection in these buildings.

Answer:

The term “Deemed to satisfy” is technically used to describe a construction that has complied with the various requirements as per the BCA and that it comprises “acceptable construction practice” and “acceptable construction manual”. Therefore, it is often embedded in a hierarchy of requirements as described below:

The requirements objectives: will provide what is to be expected by the community as a result of adoption of the code

Functional statements: provides how the objectives are to be met by giving practical action plans and strategies

Building solutions: The solutions provided must be performance based and often both prescriptive and verification methods are often applied. At the prescriptive stage, the “deemed to satisfy” provides an avenue through which the building under consideration can be passed through a set of requirement standards (based on the objectives which are often at the top of the hierarchy) to ensure total/complete compliance.

F.R.L is an abbreviation of Fire Resistance Levels which denotes the ability of a given building to withstand fire under given conditions for a period of time before it gets damaged completely (RFS, 2012). It is at times referred to as Fire Rating Level. The three numbers 60/60/60 means the maximum time (in minutes) that it will take for the building element under the test conditions not to fail given a set of three criteria; for example, structural adequacy, integrity and insulation (Sound of architecture, 2015)

The building belongs to class 2 according to the BCA standard which states that “a class 2 building has 2 or more dwelling units (Shire, no year).There are only 2 levels in the given storey building since the lower level is designated for car space only and according to Broome (no year), in determining the ‘rise in storeys’ it does not include spaces set aside for car parking

Table 1: The BCA building classification

Rise in storeys	Class of building 2,3,9	Class of buildings 5,6,7,8
4 or more	A	A
3	A	B
2	B	C
1	C	C

The two main methods include: the verification and prescription. In verification, a standard test methodology is provided such that the assessment results for the given building (in ascertaining the fire safety situation) is often passed through (Broome, no year). The results based on some grading criteria are used to quantitatively rate the building fire safety and preparedness. While in prescription method, a set of guidelines are provided from which what is to be done is captured so that the building can be in tandem with the BCA fire safety code hence under this category, assessor would often refer to the term ‘deemed to satisfy’ if he/she, based on her skills and experience, ascertains that it has actually complied nearly 100%

This is a type I B which is fire resistive non-combustible (DPS, no year). If one takes a look at the building section provided, it reveals that it is a mid-rise building with both floor and ceiling demarcation.The material to be used must be of sound structural integrity with insulation properties. Besides, it has to comply with set standards of the material testing as per the Australian standards. Furthermore, it must have insulation properties so that should there be fire outbreak in one section of the compartment it does not spread to the rest of the building floors.

Often the building designers compartmentalize the house plan so that those functionally similar elements of the building are clamped together. Now, due to different fire safety requirements of the elements, there is need for the exits to be fire isolated so that it can be easier during emergency evacuation and firefighting.

Table 2: Standard exit widths based on number of persons

Given: floor area= 1250m²

Firstly, we assume that each person can comfortably be accommodated in a floor space of 2m²

Hence the number of persons to be accommodated in the floor space= 1250/2= 625

From table 2, it should therefore be about 5mm personAbsolutely, it does comply with the BCA travel distance which normally sets a minimum of diagonal length of the square size of the room so that it can easily almost all the corners of the house

There should be adequate lighting to ensure that all corners of the room are illuminated. Notably, provisions should be made in the design to vehemently utilize the free natural lighting hence minimize on the energy requirements for artificial lighting. It should be noted that the too much energy requirements in the building is a recipe for fire outbreaks if not properly handled. The exits are required at least 2 per every room to provide alternative escape roots. Besides, for high rise buildings, there should many options to safely evacuate the occupants in upper floors to ground floor and then out of the building. This can be done using a combination of lifts, escalators, stairs and ramps for people with special needs. Also, often times, external building climbers (that also would act as windbreaks) are provided to make the building accommodative for everyone with different needs during fire emergency evacuation.

Class 2 and 3 buildings need to have the sprinkler protection. This category would include the high rise residential buildings.

References

Sound of Architecture. (2015). Fire Ratings, FRLS, RISF, Load Bearing; what do they all mean? Available from: http://info.soundofarchitecture.com/blog/fire-ratings-frls-risf-load-bearing-what-do-they-all-mean

Universal Design. (2015). BUILDING CODE OF AUSTRALIA PERFORMANCE HIERARCHY. Available from: https://universaldesignmeetstheexitsign.com/white-paper/performance-based-building-codes-2/building-code-of-australia-performance-hierarchy/

RFS. (2012). Fire Resistance Levels (FRLs). Available from: https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/4592/Fast-Fact-Fire-Resistance-Levels.pdf

Shire. (no year). A Guide to the Building Code of Australia (BCA). Available from: http://www.shire.gov.cx/sites/default/files/documents/building-approvals/Building%20Code%20Guide.pdf

Broome, S. (no year). HOME BUILDING REGULATION: CALCULATION OF RISE IN STOREYS. Available from: https://www.ocn.org.au/sites/default/files/110411%20Calculation%20of%20rise%20in%20storeys.pdf

DPS. (no year). Construction Types – Definitions. Available from: https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/sfm/programs-services/Documents/Sprinkler%20Applications/ConstructionTypeDefinitions.pdf.