Hello,
What is the difference between a smoke protected egress stairway and a fire protected stairway?
Thank you
Smoke protection, which is covered in IBC chapters 709 and 710, are often used in healthcare and assembly occupancies to prevent the spread of smoke. There are smoke barriers and smoke partitions, each with their own requirements as set forth in the previously mentioned sections of the IBC.
Fire protection and ratings of stairways/hallways/between occupancies is covered throughout the rest of chapter 7, and is what you’ll predominantly deal with on the ARE and in practice, unless designing many healthcare and/or assembly occupancies.
Thank you Chris.
I find that healthcare and assembly occupancies are where smoke protection are primarily used to be a bit misleading kind of statement. If one were to look at the ncarb practice exams, bunk rooms (R) separated from each other in a fire station (made up of A, B, S1, S2 and R)need to have smoke partitions
Hey @markcohen2002 - I edited my response above to change ‘primarily’ to ‘often’. It wasn’t my intent to suggest that these are the only types of buildings where smoke protection should be provided, it was just an example.
I wouldn’t take information like this and directly apply it to a question on the ARE - if a question is asking about smoke protection requirements in a fire station, for example, you need to review the requirements of the building code in order to answer that question; not recall something you’ve read/heard about common places where that type of system is used.
Hope that clears it up and thanks for being part of our community!
Chris, I certainly understand and nothing disrespectful to you at all. These ARE exams are so wide it leaves coaches and tutors in a tricky situation because its hard for one to list or include most situations of a question or scenario. Thanks for your tutoring and keep answering our questions when you can. We appreciate it.