Older High Rise Buildings Were Put Up Without Sprinklers Or Other Fire Protection Measures In Early 1900’s

Why did code officials allow them to be built that way?
And why modern renovations make them death traps.

By Nick Markowitz Jr.
Fire Investigator

It has happened again this time in Chicago at the LaSalle bank building and luckily there were only injuries and no deaths. The Chicago FD is to be commended for their quick and heroic actions. A building once again with no sprinkler system, but at least they were working on installing one, caught fire and destroyed 2 floors before it was stopped.

One has to ask the fundamental question, Just who in their right mind allowed such a building to be built when sprinklers were available at the time and not installed?

This answer gets muddled in building code history. At the time of the early 1900’s national building codes were non-existent. It was up to each city and state to make their own codes. Even the National Electrical Code back then consisted of 20 pages. All engineering and architecture as it was understood then was to make buildings fire proof. To withstand a fire's damage but with one major fundamental flaw, which unfortunately was found out when the fireproof Winecoff Hotel in downtown Atlanta Ga. built in the 20’s produced a horrific fire on Dec. 7 1946. In deed the building was fire proof constructed but they forgot about its flammable contents. Open airshafts etc that resulted in 119 dead as a result. Many the young and brightest high school students from Atlanta were there for a scholastic fair held by the YMCA. This fire is still listed as one of the worse hotel fires in US/ World history. The building still stands today though it is vacant. The fire once thought accidental is now believed to be arson

So just how did they build these supposed fireproof buildings? They started with solid, very heavy steel beams. They encased the beams with a very heavy plaster type material and also used terra cotta and masonry cement and was from floor to ceiling, creating a total and complete firewall. They also used lots of asbestos as well, which caused additional problems when they started removing it. All wiring back then was run thru heavy wall rigid conduit including the phone lines. In effect you had plaster and mortar walls that formed a solid cubicle box.

The theory and it has proved itself out many times was the fire could not get out of the office and spread through the building because in effect the heavy wooden door and thick walls created a 3 hour fire rating. But the heavy wooden doors often had dormers above them that were some times permanently left open as in the case of the Winecoff Hotel. They also had a large 3-6” dry stand pipe with 1 ½” fittings on every floor including fire hose cabinets and tip over soda fire extinguishers were thought the best way to protect instead of going to the expensive sprinklers, which could damage office contents if accidentally activated. At this point sprinklers were used mainly in warehouses and plants and not thought of as having great life saving abilities until studies were done in later years.

They forgfot some fundamentals along the way when they built these fireproof buildings Just like the Titanic the designs had flaws. Flammable rugs and draperies and all that wooden furniture and even wooden file cabinets. Add to these ceilings many times were the cellulose tile applied with highly flammable glue. Stairways were often narrow and only 1 staircase per building like the Investment building, which is 23 stories and has one 4 ft wide central stairway. No fire escape and most of the fire escapes I see in Pittsburgh I would be afraid to use because they have not been kept properly maintained. The stairway doors did not have positive latching on them and could be blown open allowing smoke to pour thru the building that kills more often than actual fire.

My late neighbor Tom Davis, when I lived in the City of Pittsburgh, was a city fire officer at the time of the Investment Building fire and brought down a disabled wheel chair using accountant from the 19th floor on his back through all the black thick smoke. He often told the story how the fire never got out of the Violin repair shop but how terrible the smoke was. After the fire the non-functioning fire alarm (a whole different story for another article) was drastically upgraded and many other safety improvements were done to the building, including pressurized stairwells to keep smoke out of the stairwells. But many of these older buildings were drastically changed over the years as central AC was added and additional electrical and phone wiring installed and ceilings were dropped to hide everything. All these pipe and ductwork holes penetrating everywhere, which compromised the firewalls because they often times, were not filled back in. And heat sensitive fire dampers were not installed. Then to make matters worse many buildings started knocking out those heavy terracotta and plaster assemblies and started replacing them with drywall and steel studs. Often times the ceilings were put up first and walls installed underneath to allow walls to be moved more easily but also compromised any intent of a true fire wall. Often times highly combustible PVC coated low voltage wires were layered on top of these ceilings and this wire produced extremely dense deadly smoke.

The NEC was drastically changed in the 80’s to address this issue and wire jackets had to be redesigned after several deadly fires. One must understand our modern codes were written after many tragic fires and deaths after the lessons are learned the hard way. Just like the Coconut Grove Club fire in Boston during WWII showed us that there had to be regular doors installed beside revolving doors to prevent people from being trapped. This fire after all these years also has now taught us the dangers of that dangerous glue used to put those same cellulose tiles in Coconut Grove which is now being blamed for the over 400 fatalities. That same tile covered over by suspended ceilings and never removed are waiting like ticking time bombs in buildings all over the US.
Of course with heavy masonry construction you could only build so high as the cost became prohibited so steel frames coated with asbestos and drywall became a favorite for building skyscrapers and again there was nothing in the national codes that required sprinklers or old buildings to get retrofitted and the architects engineers and builders won out. Instead again relying on the firewall logic and primitive fire alarms as to being the way to build.

Too many lessons we were taught like the MGM grand in Las Vegas. I met a gentleman who survived the fire and lived here in Pittsburgh and he tried to get codes changed but ended up not accomplishing much in the end with a cloud of controversy at the end of his life. Of course many cities with multi story buildings 3-9 stories stopped allowing occupancy permits above the first floor after the original tenants moved out so now you see entire blocks of buildings with the floors above empty or filed with inventory as the only way city officials will allow there use is if they are updated to new codes which is expensive. So you have rows of rotting buildings in many cases. Which plagues many cities because of all the unused space. There are no easy answers in this matter it is public safety vs cost, and cost usually wins.

Until there is a will of the fire service and politicians to take the task of mandating sprinklers in all existing and new high rise construction and fightbuilders and there private interests expect more high rise fires with disastrous results.

This content may not be published or re-used without prior consent from Hoopieworld.com and/or the author.