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Ask the Expert: Fire safety with patient laundries

Healthcare Safety Leader asked Brad Keyes, CHSP, owner of Keyes Life Safety Compliance and a consultant and expert on the Life Safety Code®, for tips about safety and compliance with washing machines and dryers in patient laundry rooms in hospitals or behavioral health units. (For more on infection control in patient laundry rooms, go here.)

“The only reference in the 2012 Life Safety Code regarding ‘laundry rooms’ is found in 18.3.2.1 for new conditions and 19.3.2.1.5 for existing conditions that automatically requires laundry rooms larger than 100 square feet to comply with the respective hazardous room requirements. The washer and dryer rooms that you refer to for behavioral health units have always been less than 100 square feet that I have seen. So, obviously sections 18.3.2.1 and 19.3.2.1.5 do not apply,” says Keyes.

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