Re: London bombs made from "household items" and military materials

"Rich Johnson" <rwh.johnson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Xns96B278D93DA11rwhj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "Arved Sandstrom" <asandstrom@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
> ZhyLe.195823$tt5.104759@edtnps90:">news:ZhyLe.195823$tt5.104759@edtnps90:
>
>
> > I was thinking of getting a second extinguisher at own cost myself,
> > and putting it in a more sensible location for egress from much of my
> > apartment. I am in a basement flat, you see, hence cannot exit except
> > one way. Not unless I get a short step-ladder, and a fireaxe, so I can
> > get out a bedroom window.
>
> When we built our house in 2001 we were asked if any of the basment rooms
> were going to be used as bedrooms, because if they were the windows had to
> be big enough and positioned for easy exiting during a fire or other
> emergency. Depending on your relationship with the landlord you may want
to
> bring this point up.

You bring up a good point, Rich. I do have a good relationship with my
landlord, but I'll have to do some tidying up of my own, and read the Fire
Code, before bringing this up. As it is, a fire inspector would probably
stroke out if he came in right now.

The house itself is about 60 years old, originally a single-family dwelling.
My landlord used to live in it, before moving to another place not so far
away, and converting this place into three flats. As it stands, there must
have been very extensive remodelling inside and outside at all levels (*).
There used to be a back door for the 1st floor, but that's now wall, but the
steps are still there (the first floor is about 4 feet AGL). Then there's
the outside access to the second floor - that would be an add-on. As for
work done overall on the 1st and 2nd floors, you can guess as well as I can
what needed to be done.

Plus there is now an interior hallway that connects all three levels via
stairs. So the upstairs neighbours have 2 doors - each 1 exterior, and one
into the hallway leading to the main front door. We all have side doors
also.

Being in a basement flat, I do not have that direct exterior door. My
ingress/egress is out my flat door, into the common hallway (stairwell), and
then either out my exterior side door, or up the steps to the main door.
Problem being, the furnaces etc for the entire house have to be somewhere -
and they are on my level in a utility room, which is adjacent to my bedroom,
my hallway for getting from the back rooms to the door, and right next to my
final egress doors. If a fire were to break out in there, the lower hallway
could be engulfed in smoke and flame, and the worst thing I could do is open
my inner door.

I just now identified several points of egress via window that would work,
if preparations were made. As I say, *my* worst-case scenario is not a
kitchen fire - it's a utility room fire. There are several possibilities -
both the kitchen window and the living room side windows are large enough,
but let's restrict ourselves to the two back bedrooms (one being a storage
room). Both have windows that start at ground level, are about 3 foot by 3
foot, and start at GL, about chest height for me. So the windows themselves
are big enough, easily. Problem being - inner sash that only goes up so far,
followed by fixed aluminum frame windows with bottom slideups, and outer bug
mesh. I mean these are old-style windows.

I see no real solution to it other than to keep my cell-phone with me at all
times, have a rag handy to tie over my mouth and nose, have a handy step-up
under the window, maintain a fire extinguisher in the bedroom, have thick
leather gloves on the window sill, and use one of my *serious* axes to
totally demolish the structure so I can toss out the cat and then wriggle
out myself.

Food for thought, though, Rich. I realized I really don't have a
comprehensive fire plan. And it's not entirely my landlord's responsibility
to prepare one.

AHS

* My parents faced the opposite problem - when they bought their 80-year old
house back in the 60's, it was an original single-family converted into two
flats which they had to slowly re-convert back into single family.


.

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