- Author
- Chapman, R. E. | Chen, P. T. | Hall, W. G.
- Title
- Economic Aspects of Fire Safety in Health Care Facilities: Guidelines for Cost-Effective Retrofits. Final Report.
- Coporate
- National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD
- Sponsor
- Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Washington, DC
- Report
- NBSIR 79-1902, November 1979, 117 p.
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Keywords
- building codes | economic factors | fire safety | health care facilities | hospitals | life safety | nursing homes
- Abstract
- This study focuses upon one aspect of the fire safety problem in health care facilities; the use of the Fire Safety Ealuation System deceloped by the Center for Fire Research at the National Bureau of Standards for determining equivalence to the Life Safety Code. The Life Safety Code, a voluntary code developed by the National Fire Protection Association, is currently the most widely used guide for identifying the minimum level of fire safety in buildings. Using the Fire Safety Evaluation system as a basis, this study develope a computerized procedure which permits the least-cost means of achieving compliance to the Life safety Code in health care facilities to be identified. Since each of the parameters used in the Fire Safety Evaluation System has a unique value which corresponds to strict compliance, it is possible to quantify the cost savings attributable to the use of the Fire Safety Evaluation System over strict compliance to the Life Safety Code. Preliminary studies conducted by the National Bureau of Standards of a prototypical hospital have concluded that the use of this computerized procedure can result in cost savings of 50 percent or more over those associated with strict compliance to the Life Safety Code.