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Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

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Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#151

Post by sbierwagen »

nerdponx wrote: post #132
rcthompson wrote: post #126

I live in an apartment with 2 staircases, an elevator, and a fire escape. Several months ago, there was a fire in a first floor apartment that blocked me from using ALL of them, via either unbreathable smoke or flames. I ended up just hiding in my room until the fire department dealt with it. I'm not sure whether this argues for more staircases or fewer. (In hindsight I did have other options, but this was my first f…

For the benefit of other people who haven't been in a serious building fire: what were your other options?

Windows.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#152

Post by sbierwagen »

Syonyk wrote: post #87
afirement wrote: post #52

I live in a London apartment building with a single staircase, which is standard here. The difference in principle seems to relate to “what happens when there’s a fire?”. Here, we don’t need to escape if there’s a fire in the building[1], because regulations demand walls, floors and doors that can withstand many hours of fire, which provides more than enough time for the fire service to attend and extinguish the fire…

In the USA, the Sept 11 WTC collapse was another one of those "Shelter in place as deadly" incidents when "something that couldn't happen" (skyscrapers collapsing from impact/fire/{conspiracy theories go here}) did. They were "designed to withstand an airplane crash" - and, previously, other buildings had [0]. "Stay in a building that's actively on fire, don't worry, people will come and take care of it!" sounds, to…

>Shelter in place as deadly

Similarly, the standard instruction for earthquakes is "stop drop and hold", since the advice has to be fully general, covering all people in all circumstances, including highrises where evacuation is not possible. But I live in the ground floor of a not particularly well-built four story apartment building; my desk is eight feet away from an outside door. If there's an earthquake, I'm leaving!

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#154

Post by kube-system »

afirement wrote: post #93
Syonyk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the USA, the Sept 11 WTC collapse was another one of those "Shelter in place as deadly" incidents when "something that couldn't happen" (skyscrapers collapsing from impact/fire/{conspiracy theories go here}) did. They were "designed to withstand an airplane crash" - and, previously, other buildings had [0]. "Stay in a building that's actively on fire, don't worry, people will come and take care of it!" sounds, to…

I understand the point you're making but it doesn't consider that fire safety is made up of layers, including (but not limited to) construction, equipment, policy and response. "Ah shit my building is on fire, I better run" makes so many assumptions that it cannot be considered a meaningful fire safety strategy. For example, what if I am asleep? what if I am deaf? what if I cannot walk? Certainly, there's disasters w…

Response was the first thing that came to mind reading your initial post. I bet you have a full-time fire service close by your building. 70% of the firefighters in the US are volunteers. I can think of several multistory apartment buildings that I know are in volunteer fire department districts off the top of my head. And it’s not like I memorize fire districts.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#155

Post by wolverine876 »

> The purported reason for such rules is fire safety, though there’s no evidence that Americans and Canadians are any safer from structure fires than our neighbors around the world, where one-staircase construction is permitted even in buildings eight, 10, or 20 stories high.

That is quite a thing to dismiss. Is there evidence otherwise? Shouldn't we be looking at evidence that two staircases improves safety regardless of location?

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#156

Post by avereveard »

petee wrote: post #33
istinetz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone in the comments is raising the (valid) fire safety argument; however, I'd like to point out that this is a non-obvious trade-off. How many house fires are there? How many of them are in tall buildings? How many of them would block just one stair, and not two? Yes, there is a probability that an extra stair will save your life; however, this is a very tiny probability, against a certainty of extra living spac…

The problem is that you can't track how many disasters were prevented by having two means of egress, so I cant imagine there are real statistics on that I hate the space argument because its a money argument, not a real quality of life issue - make the building 1 floor taller, or don't cram your residents just because you wanted to milk 4 apts instead of 3 on a floor.

It's not the two egress per se, it's about not having cul-de-sac that fire could isolate from the exits.

A circular shape with one exit it's much harder to be stuck into by a single ignition point.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#157

Post by wolverine876 »

istinetz wrote: post #25
rococode wrote: post #7

Here's something that happened one week ago, a perfect (and sad) example of what happens when you only have one set of stairs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Osaka_building_fire > The victims gasped for air and had difficulties escaping, as there was only one escape route, with the emergency stairs and elevators being located outside the clinic. > Experts were surprised by the fire's high death toll. The authorit…

Everyone in the comments is raising the (valid) fire safety argument; however, I'd like to point out that this is a non-obvious trade-off. How many house fires are there? How many of them are in tall buildings? How many of them would block just one stair, and not two? Yes, there is a probability that an extra stair will save your life; however, this is a very tiny probability, against a certainty of extra living spac…

You are free to ignore fire safety rules in your own private house, built far away from everyone else's private homes (and anything flammable). History shows that fire can be disasterous.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#158

Post by jfoster »

istinetz wrote: post #25
rococode wrote: post #7

Here's something that happened one week ago, a perfect (and sad) example of what happens when you only have one set of stairs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Osaka_building_fire > The victims gasped for air and had difficulties escaping, as there was only one escape route, with the emergency stairs and elevators being located outside the clinic. > Experts were surprised by the fire's high death toll. The authorit…

Everyone in the comments is raising the (valid) fire safety argument; however, I'd like to point out that this is a non-obvious trade-off. How many house fires are there? How many of them are in tall buildings? How many of them would block just one stair, and not two? Yes, there is a probability that an extra stair will save your life; however, this is a very tiny probability, against a certainty of extra living spac…

In fact, every additional staircase adds a potentially useful escape route, so how many will be enough?

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#159

Post by [deleted] »

dapids wrote: post #148
lazide wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does in most places - concrete stairwells (typical) don’t exactly love fire. Sheetrock similar.

If an accelerant is used that is continuously burned until exhausted , then I'm not sure it matters where or what materials are present. If there is a fire at an exit that persists and is difficult to extinguish, said arsonist can then move to the next exit, and perform the same action. Thus blocking multiple exits while acting as a single individual. That's my point.

[deleted]

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#160

Post by jfoster »

petee wrote: post #33
istinetz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone in the comments is raising the (valid) fire safety argument; however, I'd like to point out that this is a non-obvious trade-off. How many house fires are there? How many of them are in tall buildings? How many of them would block just one stair, and not two? Yes, there is a probability that an extra stair will save your life; however, this is a very tiny probability, against a certainty of extra living spac…

The problem is that you can't track how many disasters were prevented by having two means of egress, so I cant imagine there are real statistics on that I hate the space argument because its a money argument, not a real quality of life issue - make the building 1 floor taller, or don't cram your residents just because you wanted to milk 4 apts instead of 3 on a floor.

Money is just a resource and allocating this resource toward staircases may save fewer lives than allocating it in some other way.
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