Hotel fire safety

[HotelSecurity Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close HotelSecurity]

We are upgrading our fire alarm system at my downtown hotel. Because we have an internal "fire brigade" our alarm does not have to ring throughout the building everytime there is an alarm. We have a pre-alarm at the front desk. The 2 or 3 man brigade is called via walkie-talkies, we check it out. If we see or smell ANYTHING we call back the front desk & have the general alarm put on.

There have been problems during the work. A number of times the general alarm has rung, sometimes in the middle of the night, often due to human error.

I'm shocked at the number of guest that ignore the alarms or the ones that call the front desk to ask what is going on? Some free advice folks, when the fire alarm in an hotel is ringing the front desk usually does not know right away why either! Get off your butts & evacuate. That is what the alarm means!

[UtahProtectionForce Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close UtahProtectionForce]

i once had a real fire at a small, apt building, some guy left mail on a hot stove, and the mail caught fire smoked out the 4th floor, fire alarm went off, it was amazing that the residents didnt leave even though there was SMOKE< audible and visual alarms. and me telling them to evac.....

[Chucky Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chucky]

If smoke rises then why don't they put the exit signs at floor level? Or a string of flashing lights that go from ceiling to floors at exit points. How about smoke activated smoke ejectors on each floor hallways. At our University they made us install fire hose cabinets that cost a ton of money then a few years later they made us take them out cause they don't want untrained people trying to fight fires. "BIG DOH!" The 2 inch canvas covered hoses made great dock bumpers at our boat pier.
Just thought of another idea. How about alarm activated bed tipper that will slowly dump their butts out of bed and not go back to horizontal until the alarm has been reset.

[craig333 Member Find all posts View Profile Close craig333]

Actually thats 1 1/2 hose. I'm glad my building still has em because theres no way I can evacuate the old, infirm, ill, surgical patients etc, from my building. I'm really disappointed that only half of the building has fire sprinklers. A building like that should have been retrofitted.

But yeah, get out when you smell smoke. Too many tragedies have happened while people just sit around.

[HotelSecurity Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close HotelSecurity]

If smoke rises then why don't they put the exit signs at floor level? Or a string of flashing lights that go from ceiling to floors at exit points. How about smoke activated smoke ejectors on each floor hallways. At our University they made us install fire hose cabinets that cost a ton of money then a few years later they made us take them out cause they don't want untrained people trying to fight fires. "BIG DOH!" The 2 inch canvas covered hoses made great dock bumpers at our boat pier.
Just thought of another idea. How about alarm activated bed tipper that will slowly dump their butts out of bed and not go back to horizontal until the alarm has been reset.

Floor level EXIT (or in my case SORTIE) signs exist. I know of one long term hospital in Montreal that has them. Only problem is they would not last a day in an hotel.

The Quebec Workers Safety Commission (CSST) does not allow employees without firefighting gear to use fire hoses except in a defensive mode & even then there has to be 2 employees on duty.

I don't know about fans that exhaust smoke when set off by smoke detectors but my hotel has fans that pressurize the stairways, preventing smoke from entering, when the general alarm goes off.

[HotelSecurity Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close HotelSecurity]

Actually thats 1 1/2 hose. I'm glad my building still has em because theres no way I can evacuate the old, infirm, ill, surgical patients etc, from my building. I'm really disappointed that only half of the building has fire sprinklers. A building like that should have been retrofitted.

But yeah, get out when you smell smoke. Too many tragedies have happened while people just sit around.

My downtown hotel has 17 guest room floors. Only 1/3 of the rooms & hallways in front of the rooms were sprinklered. (Goes back to the early '80s when the chain mandated sprinklers ONLY when the "dead-end" corridors were more than 25 feet long. Sprinklers were not required between two stairways & if the dead-end corridor was less than 25 feet). The linen chutes & linen rooms were,lobby & some of the banquet areas that's all.

Along with the new fire alarm system we have added sprinklers everywhere. Now all guest room floors are protected (except one suite that still has to be renovated). The systems have been installed in the 3 levels of the garage & basement. These will be turned on any day now. All that will be left are the rest of the banquet areas! We will go from one of the worst protected hotels in the city to one of the best.

[craig333 Member Find all posts View Profile Close craig333]

Its crazy. Its not "that" expensive to put in sprinklers and they really work.

I have no idea what my building/company policy is on fires and I don't plan on asking.

[UtahProtectionForce Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close UtahProtectionForce]

we have manual pull station alarm system where i currently work, have to manual pull to set it off, even tough we have smoke alarms, they are not set to auto-annuciate (for give the spelling there) the alarm system, we have sprinklers im not sure if the are WET or DRY, anyone that has taken a fire science class knows the difference :P for those that dont [skip the italics unless you want to learn about the two types ]([B]WET =[/B] The sprinklers in these systems are attached to pipes containing pressurized water at all times. Individual sprinklers in the vicinity of a fire are set off by heat, allowing water to flow through them immediately. DRY =In a dry-pipe system, sprinklers are attached to pipes that contain pressurized air. When heat activates the sprinklers to open, the air pressure is reduced, allowing the dry pipe valve to open and water to flow from the sprinkler) but they will only activate upon actually fire/heat. not pulling of alarm. how ever i have worked in buildings with WET systems, once the system failed at one building on the shift before mine, elevators got soaked, what happened was computer server room got tooo hot, it set off the system, the core temp in this room became hot because it was not properly ventilated because some one had gone in and shut the fans off, 1 week worth of cleaning and restoration fun stuff