Compromised fire doors

[The Colonel]

I have recently carried out fire risk assessements on comon areas (stairs, entrance hall) of five blocks of lease hold flats on behalf of the management company. Each bloock contains 12 flats on ground, 1st & 2nd floors, all accessed off the internal common area. Not many problems as they are purpose built blocks with good inbuilt fire resistance. During the assessment it was noted that three ground floor flats either had or still have cat flaps fitted into the flat entrance door which is 30 mins FR.

Comment was made in the risk assessment that these flaps and infilled areas should be restored to 30 minutes FR as they may affect the means of escape. I have just recieved a question from the management company with regard to the doors and would be gratefull for you opnions.

"Reference the flat doors, the Management Company can readily write to the owners of the flats to have the doors checked / brought up to standard but what if an owner refuses to remedy the fix? If the Company is shown that it has taken the necessary reasonable steps (duplicate letters, final letter sent recorded etc etc) does this relinquish the responsibility (liability) from the Management Company? Is it simply the interpretation of "reasonable steps". Unusually each owner of the 60 flats is also a Director of the Management Company"

Each common area is reasonably sterile but if residents from upper floors wish to evacuate they will pass the doors with flaps.

Am I being over the top in asking for the fire resistance of these doors to be restored, they were of the 30 minute standard for a reason in the first place.

[Redone]

Envirograph provide F/R cat flaps.. Bought one last year for my doctors garage door.  Product 118.

D E S C R I P T I O N
A metal frame that houses an Envirograf® Product 16 economy intumescent box, designed
for standard cat and dog flaps (these are not supplied). Your standard door flap fits into our
unit. Standard finishes are brown, grey, and white. The fitted intumescent and PVC-faced
sponge is sufficiently smooth for a cat and dog to pass through. It will not seal or expand until
the fire has reached 1200C at the door (approximately 4 minutes into the fire). The product
can be made to fit a brick wall of any thickness.
U S E
For fire-rated doors in apartments and houses. In a fire, the intumescent material would
expand, filling the hole and maintaining the integrity of the fire door. This Envirograf® product
is simple to fit.
P E R F O R M A N C E
Tested to BS476 Part 22 (1987) and prEN1366-3, achieving 68 minutes protection.

[Chris Houston]

. It will not seal or expand until the fire has reached 1200C

So it will not stop cold smoke and might take a while to stop anything hot either?  

I'm no expert on this, but is something better not needed if it won't start working until it get's to 1200C?

[Redone]

I'd like to think it's a miss print, 200? bit nearer your intumecent materials.

[jokar]

Not over the top. They are there for protection for others.  It is an interesting case though with regard to entrance doors which are FR.  Who does the door belong to?  Quite clearly the lease should state which is the RP of the door, the managing agents or the flat occupier.  It is not really your problem any more as the FRA has been done and it is for the RP to now deal with the outcomes.

[MrH]

These fire doors onto flats are they fitted self closers and three hinges? I think not

[Paul2886]

Intumescent strips nearer to 140c before they start to activate

[The Colonel]

Had a look at Envirograf and the cat flaps would be good for replacing the existing one, the stated temperature on thier site is 120c.

Yes the doors do have 3 hinges and a self closure (Perco) of which sample doors contained broken self closers

Joker, will ask the managing agent who owns the door but I would suspect its part of the flat. I know its not my problem once it is highlighted in the risk assessment but help and advice is all part of the service to clients.

Perhaps a few coats of Envirgraf paint on the repaired parts of doors may help on the flat side?

[kurnal]

Colonel
You are absolutely right to ask for the fire resistance to be restored, as you know the doors are absolutely critical to the fire safety of the common areas and to the stay put policy,  and the fire alarm and detection strategy for the building.

As you no doubt remember the old CP3 was intended to cover floors above the first floor only but standards have moved on since then. At ground and first floor levels it was ( and still is under building Regs ADB) ok to jump out of a window.(assuming no railings, obstructions, drops over 4.5m)

 How many good fire doors are there between the ground and first floor common areas and the exit routes from the second floor? Any less than 2 and the ground and first floors will need upgrading too

The Landlord or agent should have retained control over the entrance doors to the flats and whoever drew up the leases should have seen to this if they were competent. There are many cases where in an attempt to slope shoulders and through ignorance of the implications, agents instructed their solicitors to make the front doors the tenants responsibility. If this was the case they cant now wring their hands and complain that they have lost control.

This sort of thing is so frustrating- came across a mixed use development this week of shops and flats that lacked the necessary separation between purpose groups- in the past an interconnected alarm was accepted by building control in lieu- I was working on behalf of one of the shops and found a nasty little clause trying to make my client responsible for the maintenance and testing of the alarm equipment in the flats.

So in your case the agent should check the lease agreements and ascertain from there who is responsible. If the flat owner is liable then they should seek to enforce reinstatement. If this does not work they should seek assistance from the fire and rescue service who do have the powers to serve a notice on the owners of the flat in respect of their door under the RRO to the extent that they have control over the safety of the common areas. But its probably the agents solicitors fault that it has come to this so "done all that is reasonable" would probably not withstand scrutiny.

[Clevelandfire]

I totally agree with you Kurnal but as for the FRS serving notices then I think you will find they probably wont. If its a large block and you have to serve notices on pretty much all 36 flats per block what happens if all of those residents fail to comply. There is no way in the world the brigade would have the time or resources to follow this up and take residents to court. Logistical nightmare.

Also in some brigade areas the local council would be lead authority where the new National Protocol has been implemented, this is where the FRA will be lead authority on all housing stock owned by a local authority or if the building is mixed use residential and commercial or a B&B and the Local AUthority will be lead on everything else such as private landlorded blocks of flats. Again they wont serve that many notices. Its catch 22.

[wizzer]

You would need to serve the notice on the RP - in this case the managing agent who will be able to exercise control control normally by virtue of the lease conditions. You wont be able to serve a notice onto the flat occupier - single private dwelling which is outside of the scope of the order. Yes FRS's have served enforcement notices in this instance. It is up to the RP to get the work done  - not the Fire Service, failure to do is a failure to comply with an enforcement notice, the only defence would be to show due dilligence ie that they had taken all reasonable steps to address the issue. Not an easy issue for managing agents to deal with but they have the powers and the legal obligation to do so.

[PhilB]

You would need to serve the notice on the RP - in this case the managing agent who will be able to exercise control control normally by virtue of the lease conditions. You wont be able to serve a notice onto the flat occupier - single private dwelling which is outside of the scope of the order. Yes FRS's have served enforcement notices in this instance. It is up to the RP to get the work done  - not the Fire Service, failure to do is a failure to comply with an enforcement notice, the only defence would be to show due dilligence ie that they had taken all reasonable steps to address the issue. Not an easy issue for managing agents to deal with but they have the powers and the legal obligation to do so.

Nearly agree Wizzer, but why are we back to this 'single private dwelling' question?, it has no relevance here. A notice could, I repeat could, be served on any person who has to any extent control. Now if that person happens to occupy a domestic premises, a notice coule be served on him as Kurnal correctly points out.

However the best route as you correctly point out is to go for the responsible person, who is probably the managing agent. In my opinion of course.

[Midland Retty]

I too agree with Kurnal and PhilB

I find that fire officers are wary of serving notices on tennants or residents, but in my opinion we should be taking this forward and using the legisaltion proactively.

To me a block of individualy privately owned flats can never be classed as single domestic dwelling - it is a building containing mutliple dwellings, but not a single domestic dwelling.

Residents have to realise by installing fancy plastic PVC doors they are lowering the integrity of the fire resistance and putting others at risk.

Having said all that in the real world if you have a block of flats where all 60 or so residents have changed their front doors then you would approach the RP /managing agent. Serving notices on all 60 residents would take too much time, and as Cleveland states what do you do if all of those 60 residents did not to comply?

I suspsect a magistrate probably wouldnt be too chuffed at the prospect of 60 hearings clogging up the system. So for small individual cases go enforce on the resident directly, if you are talking a lot of residents then look at the RP. (All in my opinion of course)

[Big T]

Firstly it is highly unlikely that the management agent has any control over the Leaseholders front door as the majority of leases will state that the front door belongs to the leaseholder.

In a block we manage approximately 70 residents had fire doors as their front door with no intumescent strips or cold smoke seals. The local Brigade tried to enforce us as the managing agent, but as an RSL under the housing act we are unable to spend money on Leaseholders. The brigade understood that we had no control or juristiction over the doors and then looked into enforcing the residents.

To cut a long story short they didn't enforce any of the residents (whether politically, or legally unable to, I will never know)

We received a letter of deficiencies stating that we should consider either upgrading the doors or changing the buildings fire strategy to an Evacuation policy.

I would recommend writing to the Leaseholders in partnership between the local fire service and managing agent explaining the possible consequences of a fire affecting flats with the catflaps etc.

[Midland Retty]

Firstly it is highly unlikely that the management agent has any control over the Leaseholders front door as the majority of leases will state that the front door belongs to the leaseholder.

In a block we manage approximately 70 residents had fire doors as their front door with no intumescent strips or cold smoke seals. The local Brigade tried to enforce us as the managing agent, but as an RSL under the housing act we are unable to spend money on Leaseholders. The brigade understood that we had no control or juristiction over the doors and then looked into enforcing the residents.

To cut a long story short they didn't enforce any of the residents (whether politically, or legally unable to, I will never know)

We received a letter of deficiencies stating that we should consider either upgrading the doors or changing the buildings fire strategy to an Evacuation policy.

I would recommend writing to the Leaseholders in partnership between the local fire service and managing agent explaining the possible consequences of a fire affecting flats with the catflaps etc.

Yes agreed, it does come down to lease agreements. The example you gave however when did this take place?
Im not sure of the full legalities of the scenario where managing agents are involved - theyre certainly seen to be the "responsible person" and as such Im not sure how lease agreements under the RRO would come into play.