New Fire Station

[ffmedcbk1]

you'all running fire sprinklers in there?

[dmleblanc]

you'all running fire sprinklers in there?

Yes we are...I think we could have gotten away with not having them but from the very beginning I felt very strongly that the building should have sprinklers...after all, aren't we out there advocating them all the time? It would have been hypocritical to not have them in the fire station

We discovered recently that it's going to make some of the construction easier too...The wall between the apparatus bays and the living area has to be fire rated per code. Without sprinkers that wall has to be rated for 2 hours, which the builder and the engineer were having a hard time figuring out how to do feasibly. With sprinklers that rating is cut in half, so the construction is easier and more economical.

[ffmedcbk1]

fantastic job chief. i cannot agree more about it being hypocritical and it just being a poor financial decision not to.
there have been some departments i know of that (having some extra finances) were able to put preaction, drypipe, wetpipe, and antifreeze systems in. it gave the crews more understanding of the systems and was essentially aworking training prop.

[Skojo]

new fire station construction advice

Not intending to derail Chief LeBlanc's thread, but our department is just starting down the path of building a new station. This process is new to pretty much our entire membership. Earlier in Chief LeBlanc's thread, there was an offer of advice or help in answering any questions. Just wondering if anyone here can share their thoughts about what to include in a new house, both the "must have" items and "wish list" items.

BTW, any new pictures Chief?

~Skojo

[FWDbuff]

Not intending to derail Chief LeBlanc's thread, but our department is just starting down the path of building a new station. This process is new to pretty much our entire membership. Earlier in Chief LeBlanc's thread, there was an offer of advice or help in answering any questions. Just wondering if anyone here can share their thoughts about what to include in a new house, both the "must have" items and "wish list" items.

BTW, any new pictures Chief?

~Skojo

It's been 15+ years since our new station, but from what I remember and what we have gone through:

• We regret not having a records storage room for about 15 or 20 5-drawer filing cabinets for everything from membership records to apparatus repair records to finances, etc.
• We absolutely positively regret not having enough storage space- however much storage space/closets you think you need, quadruple it and you still wont have enough
• We regret not getting a hydrant on the front ramp or a larger overhead potable water line, for filling tanks.
• We regret not getting separate sex bunkrooms.
• We regret not getting a larger kitchen with commercial-grade GAS appliances (or at least hooking the electric ones to the stand by gen set.)
• We regret not getting a locker room with showers just off the apparatus bay. If guys get nasty at a fire, they have to go through living space to get to the bunkroom/lockers to strip and then shower.
• We regret not getting some kind of a "front door" reception area that is easily seen and identified by civilians so they know to go to that door- if all doors are now closed, they knock on the first door they see and who knows if they will be heard.
• We regret not working with an architect/firm that is familiar with designing fire stations. We used a member's relative who never did a fire station before. Big mistake.

Thats just stuff that comes to me right now.

[dmleblanc]

Well, things continue to progress....here's the latest pics....

Upstairs multipurpose room....has been sheetrocked and mudded, paint should go on next week



Locker rooms (upstairs)

[dmleblanc]

Interior stairwell



Engine bay wall and heaters

[dmleblanc]

Engine bay doors have been installed


Bricks have been delivered, should be going up next week

[dmleblanc]

Starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel now.....approx. 6 weeks from completion if all continues to go according to plan.

Bathroom tile work



Engine bay stairs being installed



Engine bay doors



Engine bay walls with concrete wallboard in place and workshop

[dmleblanc]

Bricks are up



Kitchen cabinets

[penman]

Thanks for a great thread Chief. It's a terrific learning experience. Just wondering, on the upstairs area you did not have to make it accessible to persons with a disability. I know it doesn't make sense but we were told that if we had an upstairs meeting or even a locker room they would have to be accessible to all. Did you have this problem?
Many thanks Chief
Ed

[BULL321]

It coming together very nicely, Chief.

[GTRider245]

Looks good. Why no windows in the bay doors?

[dmleblanc]

Thanks for a great thread Chief. It's a terrific learning experience. Just wondering, on the upstairs area you did not have to make it accessible to persons with a disability. I know it doesn't make sense but we were told that if we had an upstairs meeting or even a locker room they would have to be accessible to all. Did you have this problem?
Many thanks Chief
Ed

We went 'round and 'round on that issue for a long time during design....We explained that the upstairs was never meant to be accessible to the general public (disabled or not), only firefighters, but that didn't matter a lick. We were facing the possibility of having to install an elevator, which is VERY expensive. Then someone finally found a loophole in the code that states that if the upstairs floor area is less than X number of square feet then access is not required, and we fell just under that.

We also had fits with the stairs for the same reason. The height from the first floor to the second floor is 13 feet. Code says that you can't have more than 12 feet of vertical rise without an "intermediate landing" (a place to stop and rest if you just can't make that last foot ). The metal staircase to the engine bay (shown in the picture) meets this requirement. On the other (interior) stairs, there was no way to make them fit in the available space if we'd had to add the intermediate landing. We ended up having to get a variance but we will have to put signs at the bottom of each staircase indicating that the area is off limits to the general public. A small concession but a few weeks ago the stair issue was really holding up the job while we resolved the issue.

The meeting room is downstairs, so any meeting that a civilian might have to attend would be in an accessible area. There are locker rooms/showers upstairs but they are only for firefighters....there are accessible restroom facilities downstairs.

Yes, this has been a very educational experience....

[dmleblanc]

Looks good. Why no windows in the bay doors?

Excellent question. I would have preferred windows but the style of door was dictated by local wind rating codes (we are in a hurricane prone area). So we had to get the "rollup" style door instead of a panel-style overhead door (typical garage door). The door is made of 3" slats instead of large panels, so it could not contain large windows. If you look carefully there is one slat which has plexiglass inserts at approximately eye level, so you can look outside (albeit through a narrow slit). We had the option of adding more of those but they're real expensive and you still just have several narrow slits to look through, not a real window.

Aesthetically, yeah, it's not real attractive, but after we lost an entire station during Hurricane Gustav in ''08 (back before the wind codes were being enforced), we knew we wanted a building that was going to weather the next big one