Fire doors

[Guest]

Some of our fire doors have circulation vents on the bottom of the door, they are 1/2 hour certified fire doors but would these vents class the certification as void ? also why are toilet entrance doors not required to be fire doors, or are they ? Should the inspecting fire officer notice these points.

[Peter Wilkinson]

Look carefully at the air transfer grilles on your fire resisting doors.  They should be fitted with some means of restoring the integrity of the door in the event of fire.  There are intumescent versions available, which operate at elevated temperatures- in a fire the intumescent material expands to fill the ventilation gaps.  However, these are ineffective in resisting the passage of 'cold' smoke.  If the fire door is meant to be a FD30S, then an electro-mechanical shutter system would be more effective, perhaps interfaced with your fire detection system.

[Ian Currie]

Toilet doors are not normally required to be fire doors as they are considered very low risk in terms of fire ignition and development. The Building Standards exempt them except when they contain a particular fire risk, (and no, they don't mean a staff member who has been on a binge last night).  What I usually find though is that, where there is room, toilets tend to accumulate things like filing cabinets or janitors stores, in which case they should be considered as normal rooms for FPA certification or fire risk assessment purposes.