Protyre have over 180 branches across the UK offering car servicing and tyres providing customers with a friendly, local service whilst encompassing big brand choice, quality, value and peace of mind.
Their branch in Hilsea, Portsmouth had run out of space to store tyres and needed more space. They approached Hampshire Mezzanine with a view to fitting a mezzanine floor to fill the empty space above them in their unit.
The tyres they keep were very large and heavy so they could only be stacked to shoulder height for manual handling reasons so this was a poor use of the space. By installing a mezzanine floor, shoulder height stacks of tyres could then be stored on the ground and the first floor.
HMF designed a mezzanine floor to fill their unit except for a small loading bay area which would almost double their tyre storage space.
There were some factors to be considered on this mezzanine design. If a floor is for storage purposes only with no offices or permanent workstations where people will be working on or under the floor then fire rating isn’t required unless the floor is more than 50% of the unit it occupies or, longer than 20m in any one direction. In this case the floor was for storage purposes with no people working on or under floor and it was less than 20m in either direction. However, as it filled around 90% of the unit it would need to be fire rated on the 50% rule.
HMF therefore fitted 1 hour fire resisting below the mezzanine floor in the form of column casings, GRG fascia and a suspended ceiling. LED modular lights were also fitted to the new suspended ceiling.
On all mezzanine floors, even just for storage purposes only, under Building Regulations 1 staircase should be a General Access staircase with infill risers and 170mm maximum risers with a landing every 12 risers high. This meets the ambulant access requirements for partially abled users. At this site space was very tight and due to the fact that only physically abled operatives would work there due to the size and weight of tyres being handled, we agreed dispensation for the use of a Utility Escape staircase which is steeper and has no mid landing.
The installation took 2 weeks and the customer was very happy with the finished project.