Shopping Centres
It is extremely important for enclosed shopping centres to have smoke ventilation systems fitted because most of these centres have complex designs and are usually filled with people throughout the day. These people will usually only know one way in or out of the building if a fire did break out within the shopping centre.
All enclosed shopping centres MUST be fitted with smoke ventilation systems and in stores with a storey area of over 1300m2. All Smoke and heat exhaust ventilation systems should be designed exactly according to the rules set out by the Building Research Establishment Report.
The underside of the centre roof must be changed into smoke reservoirs and all of them should be no more than 2000m2 and at the least 1.5m deep measured to the underneath of the shopping centre roof. These smoke reservoirs must be automatically descending smoke curtains which must be no bigger than 60m apart. The smoke in the building should not be allowed to lower any more than 3m above the floor level. All of the smoke reservoirs should have the necessary amount of smoke ventilation systems or extractor fans to remove the calculated amount of smoke that could be produced evenly throughout the reservoir.
Fire Suppression
The ventilators which are fitted to the roof of the building should operate on the actuation of any fire suppression system or the actuation of the smoke detection system within the reservoir. On the operation of more than one smoke detector anywhere within the shopping centre or following any delay not exceeding four minutes from initiation of the first fire alarm signal anywhere in the shopping centre.
