chute fire escapes

jim.gm4dhj snipped-for-privacy@ntlworld.com wrote

Yep, there are some somewhere, forget where.

I'm not so sure about that. For a start you have to deploy one, and any people coming along behind you are likely to kick you in the head. I've seen this kind of thing in aircraft evacuations

The material needs to be non flammable and somewhat insulate Brian

Singapore had some, but that was years ago. Brian

Possibly you don't see them as in the real world they may pose more of a risk for injury especially during practice fire drills.

Most were fixed chutes and often like a helter skelter

More likely in the backside.

I've seen

Steel seems to have been favourite.

Unfortunately they require regular maintenance, which is something designers and builder no longer incorporate in the specification nowadays.

wot you talkin' about buildings last forever

So do fire doors, sprinkler systems, fire alarms, exit signs etc etc etc.

Wrong.

Interesting to see one on a 40-story building though.

I can't quite see from the photo what happens when you get to the bottom. Looks like it either chucks you off about 8 foot above the deck, or smashes you into a brick wall. Not sure I fancy either option!

I think when in use it'll have continued down but the building is now the Maritime Museum at Albert Dock in Liverpool and they'd not want people trying to climb up.

Some fire escapes have a fold-down section for the last number of feet.

When you decommission a fire escape, you carefully block the top, as well as removing the fold-down section at the end. That's why some of the pictures look a bit silly.

On a metal slide, you can use your shoes as a brake, and if your shoes melts, nobody cares. Whereas other slide types, such as the netting type, there's a real danger of getting abrasive skin burns.

In an emergency, external fire escapes are never a good idea. Sure, it's better than dying, but on the way down, you're not exactly congratulating the designers on a job well done. Usually these things have been left to decay, and just about anything could happen to you. On the stair type fire escape, the handrails can be broken, and so on. They can also be shaky (some of the supports rusted through).

They don't receive nearly the amount of inspection that a roller-coaster receives. (Roller coasters are inspected daily.)

Paul

Not a chute, but they got'em.

Paul

my god!

In a real emergency you if one person brakes and the person behind doesn't it can result in someone's feet hitting the spine of the person in front.

You may care a bit if your shoes melt during a routine fire escape drill. Regular drills can be effective in flagging up problem. Where I used to work they discovered on evacuating a building some people could be trapped outside the building in a virtual cul-de-sac as no-one had a key to a security gate.

I wonder how many of those slides were designed with the obese in mind, especially that internal one down the existing stairs with the 180 degree bend at the end of each section. Just look a the number of Youtube videos showing adults injuring themselves going down slides in children's playgrounds :)

One of our houses at school had a rope fire escape, like a steep Breeches buoy with some sort of automatic brake - I forget the details.