Protected staircase

[Guest AndyMil]

Hi I was wondering if you could give me advice on protected staircases.
I am opening a coffee shop in London and have Toilets and a storeroom in the basement. The ground floor holds 50 people with 2 gent and 2 ladies toilets being located in the basement.

I am constructing a staircase to the ground floor. The staircase will be the only means of escape. I am trying to find information about whether the staircase can be made out of impregnated timber to a Class 1 standard or if it would have to have a concrete construction. The width of the staircase will be 1.3 meters and have a run of 18 steps. With 2, quarter turns along the run.

Any help on this would be much appreciated as I have spoken to lots of people and keep getting different answers.

Many Thanks

[Tom Sutton]

Assuming the travel distances are such and you only require one staircase you will require 60 minutes separation between the basement and the ground floor so you need to build a 60 min staircase enclosure.

It could be studding with two layers of plaster board, skimmed or a 100mm block wall with a FD60 fire door be fitted at basement level or FD30 at basement level and a FD30 ground floor level depending on required design. There could be more work at ground floor level depending on the location of staircase to upper floors.

The staircase could be a standard timber staircase and would not be required to be treated.

Check out vol 2 of Approved Document Part B Fire Safety.

Edited September 13, 2015 by Tom Sutton