FIRE!

Hi Everyone,

We have all been in hotels and buildings that are both publicly and privately owned. One of the things that all buildings have in common are emergency exit signs. They have been mandated for decades and decades. In case of a fire, the signs, which are always lit, have a battery back up in case of an electrical outage. But do they really help? The answer is yes and no.

Let's take a look at some important facts. I believe that the signs are red and white so they are more easily read in smoke filled areas. Where there is smoke, there is fire. But, when smoke permeates a hallway, where does the smoke go? Smoke always rises, so, depending on the length of the hallway, the smoke will start filling up the ceiling area and as more smoke continues to fill the area the smoke will move down easily concealing the signs. If the signs are concealed by the smoke, what good are they? Maybe not so much.

Have you taken a plane flight lately? For at least 15 - 20 years, planes have had red LED light strips along each side of the aisles. The lights have a battery back up in case of a power failure. In case of smoke, or a power failure, you can still see the red lights. They are smartly placed on the floor. Why? As we all know when the smoke rises, it doesn't conceal the lights, for a while at least, so passengers have a better opportunity to find an emergency exit.

So, in the case of a building, when the smoke conceals the emergency exit signs, what do you do? Crawl along the floor until you find the staircase. So what is the solution? As in the case of planes,  common sense tells me that either the signs should be about 2 or 3 feet above the floor or LED strips should be installed in the floors. Since the cost of installing LED lights in the floors is probably costly, which would prohibit their installation, the less expensive and still better option than the up high on the wall signs, would be to install or move all emergency exit signs to the 2 to 3 foot height off the floor. It will then take the smoke a longer time to conceal the signs and consequently, the signs would be visible for a longer period of time. That has to be a good thing.

Ahhhhh the wonders of using common sense. It will be interesting to see how long it will take for the emergency exit signs to be mandated to a lower height level then the way they are installed presently.

Go Baltimore!

Til next week.

Peter