One of the major considerations when designing any warehouse, never mind a COMAH Class 1 maturation warehouse, is the issue of fire and ensuring the necessary escape routes meet the technical standards as issued by the government guidelines.
There are a number of approaches that can be followed to ensure any maturation racking design is compliant.
Firstly, you can simply apply the functional technical standards – these state that the maximum travel distance within a specific compartment to a place of safety should be no more than 18 metres if there is a single direction of escape.
This distance can be increased to a maximum of 45 metres if two directions of escape are available and where the escapes have an angle of diversity which is more than 45 degrees.
At the other end of the scale is an engineered approach to the design of fire escapes. This is where a Certified Fire Risk Assessor carries out extensive calculations to enable you to apply for certain relaxations in the standards which can be supported by their evidence.
This approach typically involves the digital modelling of the warehouse to understand all scenarios should a fire or fires break out in different areas within the building.
The process is often lengthy and can result in increased costs and time delays to ensure all scenarios have been taken into consideration.
Thistle Systems take a different approach to the whole process by using our experienced in-house Fire Risk Assessor who employs a more practical method using Performance Specifications – these take into consideration the environment, the materials being stored and the operational procedures.
By demonstrating these critical factors and providing a statement to explain the reasoning for our approach, we are able to design, manufacture and install maturation racking solutions that not only maximise the space utilisation but also meet all of the required safety standards and guidelines.