Office refurb - fire exit query

[Guest CADMan]

Hi there!

 

I'm wondering if anyone can help me? We have a building that is being refurbed into a shared, serviced office rental area. There is a main stairwell within the building that links all the floors internally, but there is also a secondary external stairwell / fire escape (bottom right hand side of the attached plan).

As you can see from the attached plan, my client is proposing to build separate office suites along the entire perimeter of the floor area. This will in turn block off the secondary / external fire escape route for the majority of personnel on the floor.

 

I have been reading that only 1 escape route will be required (as the distance is less then 18m total form far end of office to the escape), bit wanted to make sure this was in fact the case? Or whether we do in fact need to still keep the secondary fire escape live and unobstructed etc?

 

Any help or advice is much appreciated.

 

Thanks

[AnthonyB]

Sounds like it's OK as travel distances in a single direction to a protected stair are adequate, assuming that you won't have more than 60 persons.

In any case this should go past Building Control so they will no doubt have input.