Brentwood Care Home

The proposal was to build a five storey residential care home comprising of 74 assisted living suites with associated dining room, lounges and activity rooms and 25 en-suite bedrooms with associated communal facilities for people living with dementia.

Innovation Fire used CFD modelling to look at the movement of smoke within the corridor for various fire locations to see whether the proposed mechanical smoke extract system would clear the corridor of smoke within a reasonable time for the evacuation phase. Further CFD modelling was then used to refine the amount of smoke extract required to achieve an adequate level of safety without over specification.

Even though some lounges are open to the corridor the provision of a mechanical smoke extract system with sufficient inlet air enables the visibility and temperature within the corridor to remain tenable during the escape phase and for Fire Service attendance. Cross corridor doors were removed and overprovision of venting was avoided by using CFD modelling to refine the design, saving un-necessary costs.

Taking a holistic approach and with careful specification of the fire resistance, the placement of automatic fire detectors and sounders, and defining a robust staff-led evacuation procedure, a stay-put policy was developed to minimise disruption to all the residents.