Practice Exam 1, Case Study 2

project planning & design
1

I’m looking at practice exam 1, case study 2, question 4:

The client has requested to change a storage room next to the exhibition hall (space 1-B) from pottery storage to cloth and fiber storage.

What is the new fire separation requirement for wall C?

My reading of the scenario is that the storage room, now classified as S-1, is accessory to the main occupancy, which I saw as A-3. I see that Table 508.4 shows a 1hr separation requirement between S-1 and A-3, but since I thought of the storage room as an accessory space, I assumed no separation would be required (508.2.4). It also appears that the aggregate square footage of storage rooms would be less than 10% of the floor area, meeting the requirements for 508.2.3.

In this scenario, why is the storage room not considered accessory to the main occupancy? Or…what is incorrect about my interpretation of the scenario?

Thanks!

1 Like
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Hi @Smith.Marks that’s a great question! Let’s get one of our expert architects to help. @coachchrishopstock do you mind jumping in?

3

Hi @Smith.Marks and thanks for your question!
One strategy may be to consider the storage as accessory to the main occupancy, but nothing in the question or case study suggest that you should do so. The plan provided is a partial floor plan - there’s no way to tell if the storage spaces are 10% or less than the area of the story. An ARE question won’t require you to make generalizations such as this - if the information isn’t provided for you to make a determination, it’s likely not relevant to the answer.
Further, the question asks ‘what is the new separation required’. If the space was accessory to begin with and is still accessory, there would be no ‘new’ separation required.
Lastly, the notes on the plan indicate that a different storage room is being classified as S-1 - this is indicative of the fire separation strategy used on the project.
This is really good work reading into accessory spaces and it’s great that you understand them well - but I would always focus on what the question is asking - in this case, what is the new separation required.