Thread: question for fire fighters or architects.

it does seem wrong.

however, the evac stairwell is meant to be positive pressure too.

I don't know if it is positive pressure but may well be. However they could just as easily pointed the hydrant 90degrees and had a separate hydrant cupboard with the fire hose reel and extinguisher.

Although I am no expert,
I would believe it is to allow safer access to the hydrant and to prepare hoses etc before attacking fire etc

But the hoses going through the door keep them open making it harder to pressurise and allows smoke and heat into the stairwell.

I admit I'm stoopid but it doesn't make sense to me.

2 uses come to mind

water fogging inside the stair well to help control heat smoke and hopefully not fire inside the escape well

a protected secondary isolated fire main to cover for the eventuality of the main fire trunk being ruptured by fire damage

It may be a rising main, that needs to be pressurised from a collector point at ground level. This means that if it is being used it would be the firies that are using it and actively fire fighting on that level.


Martyn

Originally Posted by Bushie

It may be a rising main, that needs to be pressurised from a collector point at ground level. This means that if it is being used it would be the firies that are using it and actively fire fighting on that level.


Martyn

Pretty much on the money.

You will find the hydrants are probably 64mm, which will deliver enough water to enable the firies to douse pretty much anything fairly quickly.

If there are hydrants in the stairwells, I would suggest that the building has a "wet" system installed, being sprinklers throughout the building.

The hydrants serve 2 purposes. 1 is to allow firefighting activities on the same floor, or the above floors, and 2 is to offer protection to the actual stairwell itself.

If a fire breaks out on say, level 17 of a building, the firies will probably connect up 1 or 2 floors below, run the hose out, pressure it up, and make entry to the burning floor with water protection. Meanwhile, on the street, the water officer would have found a street hydrant, run out more hose from that to the pump, connected a pump to the hydrant booster, and started pressurising they system.

It is unlikely that they will ever be used in anger, as it would mean that, as a minimum, 2 lengths of 64mm hose, plus a Y branch would need to be carried to the floor to use. Plus, dragging that size hose, full of water and under pressure, is not a fun filled activity.

Oh, and you will find it is in the Building Code of Australia, and fairly common in most high rise buildings.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

I don't know if it is positive pressure but may well be. However they could just as easily pointed the hydrant 90degrees and had a separate hydrant cupboard with the fire hose reel and extinguisher.

FHRs - one of the more pointless pieces of equipment we need to design into buildings. If the fire is too big to put out with the extinguisher, then you are probably evacuating. The fire fighters then BYO equipment.

FHRs are, in my experience, only ever used for cleaning driveways (not that they're meant to).