Demonstration Exam question

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Tamara Hybertson

December 11, 2020 22:11

Hi All. 

I may be just in one of those places where it seems the answer is just really far off, but I can't for the life of me get this answer correct in my head. This is from the Demo exam.

Refer to the exhibit. 

The occupancy of the top floor of a museum project has increased from 800 to 1,200 occupants. The building contains an automatic fire sprinkler system, emergency communication system, and four stairwells to provide equally distributed egress from all floors.  

Drag the dimensions from the left into the three boxes on the enlarged stair plan drawing to identify the minimum dimensions required for egress. Not all dimensions will be used. 

So, I feel like this is fairly straight forward. I take the new occupancy of the top floor which is 1,200 then divide it by 4 (because there are 4 stairways). 300pp. I then multiply that by the stairway capacity factor of 0.3 inches. 90". I would then divide that by 12" to get the ft. 7.5'. This would be for the width of the stairs. I do the same for the door way but use the 0.2 "other egress components factor for the doorway?

Just not confident with the answer and am in need of assistance. 

Thanks!

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  Kristin Irwin December 12, 2020 01:04

  Hi Tamara, You are correct in your math but remember to always read the exceptions in the code. In this case, there is an exception for the sprinkler for both the stair width and door. You should be multiplying .2 for the stair and .15 for the door based on the exception... so 5'-0 for the stair widths and 3'-9" for the door. 

  Also, some of the demo exam questions are answered in the handbook with explanations (located on the NCARB website under pass the ARE - format - on the right side of the page under resources). This particular question is in the PDD section pg 123-124. The demo exam has a mixture of questions from all the exam divisions, so you may need to do some digging. 

  Hope this helps. 

   

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  Kathryn O'Regan December 12, 2020 04:22

  Also gut check your answers for how realistic they are.  The door is drawn as a single leaf, so a 5' wide door is not very realistic.  

  +1 to reading through the handbook and taking time to understand the explanations.

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  Tamara Hybertson December 15, 2020 17:22

  Thanks for all of the input. I took the exam yesterday and got to experience the new format. 

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  Aleksandar Stojkovic December 16, 2020 04:23

  By the way, the max door leaf width is 4'-0" as per section IBC 1010.1.1.

  So that would also eliminate some of the answers as Kathryn was saying above.

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