Apartment buildings and the “right of escape”

When spending money to buy an apartment, the first thing that consumers must demand for themselves is not the right to live comfortably with a series of high-end amenities, but the most basic minimum right: "the right to safety".

When customers "click their tongue" easily

Ms. Kim - a credit officer of a bank in Tan Phong ward, district 7 was very excited when she passed the application review round to buy an apartment in a social housing project on Nguyen Van Linh street, Binh Chanh.

After 2 years of waiting for a long time as a renter, in early 2017 she was very happy to receive a notice from the investor to receive the house. The apartment and building facilities that she received were quite neat. However, when asked about the fire prevention system acceptance report, the investor refused with all kinds of excuses. Tired of having to go back and forth, she reluctantly moved in while the building's fire prevention system was non-slip. She reluctantly agreed, "I'm sure the fire will spare me."

Not only Ms. Kim, more than 300 other customers also moved in after compromising with the investor's leniency. Until 3 months after moving in, at 1am, there was a scream, she stepped out the door and saw fire engulfing the entire 14th floor.

Fortunately, the fire did not cause any human casualties, but it left nearly 300 families in this project living in homeless shelters.

Not only the apartment that Ms. Kim bought, the writer has witnessed a series of apartments in Ho Chi Minh City, and Hanoi: when the facilities are still messy, the fire prevention system is not yet available, but the investors quickly "herded" residents in to receive the handover to avoid being fined for late handover. As for the residents, because of urgent housing needs, they also easily received the house and thought to themselves: "it will probably be fine".

It can be seen that the pressure on fire protection systems belongs more to low-cost apartments. First, the investors of these apartments often reduce costs by cutting down on fire protection systems.

Second, in this segment, investors often maximize business space, with apartments densely arranged on one floor. The house area is smaller than luxury apartments, so in case of an accident, smoke and fire will spread faster, and on the other hand, escape will be more difficult. The fire protection system is not of high quality due to capital constraints.

Therefore, home buyers, before looking at the utility system or the investor's advertisements, should look at the pre-installed fire protection system to ensure the minimum right "right to safety".

Be more demanding

For more than 10 years, since the apartment system appeared, consumers have been easy on themselves. And the consecutive apartment fire incidents that have occurred in recent times are a bell for apartment residents to look back at the problem so as not to be easy on the safety of their families.

Along with that, investors also have to invest in a very thorough fire prevention system to meet the increasing needs of customers.

Recently, the most "expensive" spending on fire prevention and fighting systems is the "Detox & Healthy" Green Star Sky Garden apartment project developed by Hung Loc Phat company. According to a survey, the investor spent nearly 100 billion to complete this system.

According to the investor representative, the fire alarm system is designed, selected and installed in accordance with the latest Vietnamese regulations and standards, taking into account foreign standards such as Singapore standards (CP10), American standards (NFPA 72) and European standards (EN54); the above equipment is inspected by reputable international independent units.

Specifically, Green Star Sky Garden has invested in a heat and smoke sensor system with sprinkler heads for each apartment. As soon as the room temperature increases by 70%, the smart faucet system in the apartments will automatically spray water to prevent fire and immediately alarm.

In addition, instead of only having about 1 exit like normal projects, Green Star Sky Garden is equipped with 2 exits for each Block that are completely smoke-proof thanks to the system of fans creating pressure on the building. What is special is that all these exits are built completely isolated from areas that can cause fire and explosion by layers of fireproof steel core doors.

In addition to the smoke-proof fire escape system, each tower will be equipped with a dedicated elevator with a continuous backup generator system, which can be used even when the building is on fire. The lack of water for fire fighting is also completely solved by an underground water reservoir with a capacity of nearly 1,000 m3 in the basement area, a swimming pool on the 5th floor and a Swan Lake area with a capacity of nearly 10,000 m3 within the project.

Also according to the representative of Hung Loc Phat, the cost of equipping a fire protection system is not much, the biggest cost that the investor has to spend is to arrange a reasonable building design with low construction density so that in case of an incident: toxic smoke must escape from the project as quickly as possible and residents have plenty of spare space to isolate large-scale smoke and fire safely for shelter.

Therefore, all apartments in the project are arranged with spacious balconies to enhance fire escape and smoke escape along with a smoke exhaust system throughout the building.

In particular, within Green Star Sky Garden, Hung Loc Phat has also reserved hundreds of square meters to create a series of tropical gardens and interconnected streams. Under normal conditions, these will be cool green gardens bringing fresh air to each apartment.

In case of fire or explosion, these mezzanine gardens will be areas to help residents escape easily, and at the same time, they will be shelters isolated from smoke and fire when an incident occurs.

Besides the above project, some recent projects such as Topaz Twins (Bien Hoa), Emerad City (Hanoi)... have also spent tens of billions on systematic fire prevention and fighting systems.