How Many Evacuation Chairs Do I Need?
9 August 2024
Any building in the UK where mobility impaired or disabled people are present must have facilities in place to ensure they can safely evacuate the building in the event of an emergency. With that in mind, how many chairs will your building require to safely evacuate all vulnerable people? As one chair can only be used to evacuate a single person at a time, it's crucial to ensure the correct number of chairs are available, in the correct areas, to accommodate each person.
In this article we'll cover the following:
How Will I Know How Many Chairs I Need?
It's impossible to provide a one-size-fits-all recommendation for the number of chairs every business will require in the event of an emergency. The number will depend on a number of factors regarding the features of your building and the needs of your occupants, and we strongly recommend you hire a qualified person for a formal fire assessment to get a clear outline of the needs of your premises.
Which Factors Will I Need to Consider?
Common factors that will affect the number of chairs you require will include (but are not limited to):
- Number of floors in your building
- Number of stairwells in your building
- Number of emergency exits
- Number of vulnerable persons that are normally present
- Number of visitors or customers that can be expected
Is There a Recommended Gold Standard?
Unfortunately, there is no magic number that will ensure excellent compliance to fire safety regulations. For larger businesses, a good starting point has often been one chair, per stairwell, per floor. After that, your personal assessment may add chair requirements based on the number of vulnerable people, and the number of expected visitors, as mentioned above.
Silver Standard
We know that keeping costs down is a priority for every business, which means the gold standard listed above isn't always a reality. With that in mind, many businesses opt for one chair per floor, which still provides the means for safe evacuations in most cases. However, this method will often fall short of what is recommended after your fire safety assessment.
Bronze Standard
To maximise cost-efficacy, or when there are few occupants in a building, having an evacuation chair on every second floor can sometimes suffice. See the diagram below for an example of how this could be laid out.
What Advice Can You Provide?
The general rule of thumb is that one chair, on one floor, will serve one person. This doesn't necessarily mean that every person in a building will require a chair, as that would be nearly impossible to afford for most businesses and building managers. Instead, "one person" should be interpreted as each vulnerable person in need of assistance during emergency evacuation. Every vulnerable person will need to be accounted for, and it will depend on the layout of the building whether the chair is best placed nearby to that individual, or near the entrance to the stairwell that will provide the safest exit from the building.
How Do I Account for Guests and Visitors?
The most difficult considerations in deciding how many evacuation chairs you'll need will often involve ensuring you're ready for the evacuation of your guests and visitors. In these cases, it's important to consider that 20% of adults in the UK are disabled, meaning that out of five visitors or guests, one person would often require assistance during an emergency with an evacuation chair. With that assumption in mind, a building expecting five visitors at a time would require one additional chair on top of their normal requirements, while a building expecting 10 visitors would require two additional chairs, and so on.
What Type of Evacuation Chair Will I Need?
For the majority of buildings with clear stairwells and floor space, in most scenarios a standard evacuation chair such as the Evac+Chair 300H MK5 Lightweight Evacuation Chair will be sufficient. In other cases where stair ascents may be required (such as basement evacuations), or where building features such as raised thresholds, narrow stairs or spiral stairs are present, standard chairs may be unsuitable. It's also important to consider the needs of larger vulnerable people, or operators lacking strength, who may require different chairs as well.
For more information on which type of evacuation chair you may need, read our article entitled 'What Type of Evacuation Chair Do I Need?'.
