Day Care Center Occupancy Load

[Sunnynotes]

Hi -- quick question: I'm working on a 4225 square foot, single story, commercial building that has been approved by the State of Florida as a Day Care Center with a student ocucpancy load of 92 students (3220 net usable space available to students after removing storage, restrooms, kitchen, etc). Is there anything in code that indicates teachers and staff must be deducted from the student occupancy load (i.e., 92 students, less 10 teachers, resulting in total occupancy of 82 students)

 

[cdafd]

good question never heard it asked like that

would say that the teacher is part of the factor used

now in our state the state comes out and measures and assigns a max number of kids that can be in the facility and we normaly go by that fiqure.

some how you have to include the staff.

does it really matter, except per room , and total exiting???

 

[stookeyfpe]

No. You aggregate the occupant load. Being in Florida your egress design must comply with the IBC and NFPA 101, whichever is more restrictive.

 

[DonPhillips]

The table in Chapter 10 of the IBC is pretty clear - it is based on the uses. The classrooms are 35 sf per person based on net area, and the office, administration, kitchen areas are 100 sf per person. Conference room and storage room, although different (15 sf for moveable furniture and 300 sf for storage) are typically accessory uses (less than 10% per Chapter 3) and I typically put it in the office category. If you have infant rooms that require a direct access to the outside, you typically have more egress than minimally required by code.

After all that, you get a total occupancy count for the building. If it is 92, it could be 91 adults and 1 child. From a licensing standpoint, there may be a maximum child:adult ratio but this is not mandated by the building code.

I typically see the cover sheet indicate the number of children versus the adults but that is for toilet fixture counts and parking, depending on how the zoning laws are defined.


Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com