300885 Building Regulation Studies- Standard Test Methodology

Discuss the statement “In Australia, all buildings must comply with the deemed to satisfy (DTS) provisions in the Building Code of Australia”. Illustrate your answer by referring What is an F.R.L. and what do the three numbers. Classify the following building below (figure 1) according the BCA and give the reasons for your answer. 

Determine the ‘rise in storeys’ for the following building in give the reasons for your answer.According to the BCA, the external walls of a building are required to be fireresisting when they are exposed and close to a side or rear boundary. Contrast the two methods used to determine if a wall in a Class 1 and Class 2 building is exposed to a fire source feature.

Determine the fire resisting requirements for the external walls of the Class 2 building shown in the following site plan below (figure 4) and give the reasons for your answer. Determine whether the exits serving the sprinkler-protected office in are required to be fire isolated and provide the reasons for your answer. The building shown in Figure 5 (above) has typical floor area of 1250 m2

Answer:

Building solutions: The solutions provided must be performance based and often both prescriptive and verification methods are often applied. A

t the prescriptive stage, the “deemed to satisfy” provides an avenue through which the building under consideration can be passed through a set of requirement standards (based on the objectives which are often at the top of the hierarchy) to ensure total/complete compliance.

Table 1: The BCA building classification

Often the building designers compartmentalize the house plan so that those functionally similar elements of the building are clamped together. Now, due to different fire safety requirements of the elements, there is need for the exits to be fire isolated so that it can be easier during emergency evacuation and firefighting.

Table 2: Standard exit widths based on number of persons

From table 2, it should therefore be about 5mm personAbsolutely, it does comply with the BCA travel distance which normally sets a minimum of diagonal length of the square size of the room so that it can easily almost all the corners of the house

There should be adequate lighting to ensure that all corners of the room are illuminated. Notably, provisions should be made in the design to vehemently utilize the free natural lighting hence minimize on the energy requirements for artificial lighting. It should be noted that the too much energy requirements in the building is a recipe for fire outbreaks if not properly handled. The exits are required at least 2 per every room to provide alternative escape roots. Besides, for high rise buildings, there should many options to safely evacuate the occupants in upper floors to ground floor and then out of the building. This can be done using a combination of lifts, escalators, stairs and ramps for people with special needs. Also, often times, external building climbers (that also would act as windbreaks) are provided to make the building accommodative for everyone with different needs during fire emergency evacuation.  

References

Shire. (no year). A Guide to the Building Code of Australia (BCA). Available from: https://www.shire.gov.cx/sites/default/files/documents/building-approvals/Building%20Code%20Guide.pdf

Broome, S. (no year). HOME BUILDING REGULATION: CALCULATION OF RISE IN STOREYS. Available from: https://www.ocn.org.au/sites/default/files/110411%20Calculation%20of%20rise%20in%20storeys.pdf