This guide is intended for use by those undertaking the development of fire hazard assessments for upholstered seating furniture in health care occupancies.
As a guide this document provides information on an approach to development of a fire hazard assessment, but fixed procedures are not established. Section 1.7 describes some cautions to be taken into account.
A fire hazard assessment developed following this guide should specify all steps required to determine fire hazard measures for which safety thresholds or pass/fail criteria can be meaningfully set by responsible officials using the standard.
A fire hazard assessment developed as a result of using this guide should be able to assess a new item of upholstered seating furniture being considered for use in a certain health care facility, and reach one of the conclusions in 4.4.1-4.4.4.
The new upholstered seating furniture item is safer, in terms of predicted fire performance, than the one in established use. Then, the new product would be desirable, from the point of view of fire safety.
There is no difference between the predicted fire safety of the new item and the one in established use. Then, there would be neither advantage nor disadvantage in using the new product, from the point of view of fire safety.
The new upholstered seating furniture item is predicted to be less safe, in terms of fire performance, than the one in established use. Then, the new item would be less desirable, from the point of view of fire safety than the one in established use.
If the new upholstered furniture item is predicted to be less safe, in terms of fire performance, than the one in established use, a direct substitution of the products would provide a lower level of safety and the new product should not be used, without other compensatory changes being made. A new upholstered furniture product can, however, be made acceptable if, and only if, it is part of a complete, comprehensive, fire safety design for the patient room. Such a patient room redesign should include one or more of the following features: use of an alternative layout (albeit one that cannot be altered by the patient room users) or increased use of automatic fire protection systems or changes in other furnishings or contents. In such cases, a more in-depth fire hazard assessment should be conducted to ensure that all of the changes together have demonstrated a predicted level of fire safety for the new design which is at least equal to that for the design in established use, in order to permit the use of the new upholstered seating furniture item.
Alternatively, the new design may still be acceptable if the predicted level of fire safety is commensurate with new stated fire safety objectives developed in advance.
The new upholstered seating furniture item offers some safety advantages and some safety disadvantages over the item in established use. An example of this outcome could be increased smoke obscuration with decreased heat release. Then, a more in depth fire hazard assessment would have to be conducted to balance the advantages and disadvantages.
If the patient room does not contain an upholstered seating furniture item, then the fire hazard assessment implications of the introduction of an upholstered seating furniture item should be analyzed in the same way as in 4.4. The fire safety should then be compared with that achieved in the room in established use (which has no upholstered seating furniture). The same analysis would also apply if an additional upholstered furniture item is being considered for introduction in a patient room: the fire hazard assessment should compare the fire safety implications of the addition.
An additional upholstered furniture item adds to the fuel load of a room. Thus, an analysis such as that in 4.4 would offer options 4.4.2 through 4.4.4 only.
Following the anal......
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