Single Egress Stair buildings

Imagine waking up to the sound of the fire alarm going off in your building. You stumble out of bed, grab a few things and head to the door to see what is happening. When you open the door you see smoke in the hallway and people walking in both directions, with their hands over their mouths. You figure you have to leave and get out of the building, but which way do you go? Where is the closes t stair? Where is the fire? How far away is the stair?

How long will you have to be in this smoke-filled hallway?

You don’t know. The stair door could be 200 feet away. And there will surely be a line to get into the stair. So how long do you have to be in this smoke-filled corridor?

In a Single Egress Stair (SES) building, where the stair door is within a few steps of your door, you only need to be in the smoke-filled hall a few seconds. There is no line at the door either, because there are not many people on your floor trying to go through the door.

This is the advantage of a SES, very short amount of time until you are in the protected stair enclosure. And because there are not that many people in the building, walking down the stairs to the street is also fast.

This is the benefit to safety of a SES to a big apartment building, speed of egress.