Fire doors without smoke seals

[Fishy]

All the guidance available says they should be installed in F/R doors & explains why. 


 

Hi Fishy, which guidance are you referring to that recommends the fitting of S&S to good fitting, non damaged existing fire doors?  There is also the problem of removing a decent door, rebating the door or frame to install S&S and the door it not as good fit in the frame as before.  If they are needed and are justified I have no problem, I was meaning that we should by now have moved away from "all doors need S&S" mentality regardless.

BS8214; all the CLG Guides; general fire safety literature etc, etc... if there's any government or ACOP guidance that says you can have a door with defined fire resistance without them, I've never seen it.

As I said, if you're happy not to follow good industry practice then that's fine.  You just have to be able to explain why it's safe not to do so.  This would normally be via an argument based upon equivalent risk (e.g. compensatory measures elsewhere).  Just saying "I don't like them / I don't believe in them / I don't think they're useful / my chippy always buggers the doors up when he fits them" doesn't really fit the bill.

The way I look at it... the default position is that they should be installed, because that's what all the guidance recommends.  To go away from the default, you have to argue convincingly why this is acceptably safe.  That's the test that the Courts seem to apply, so that's the test that I use.

[jayjay]

This old chestnut will probably only be resolved if there is ever a death contributed to the lack of smoke seals.

Old style FD 30 doors were never designed or tested for smoke stopping the 25mm rebate was provided to compensate for the burning away of the rebate. Once the rebate is attacked by fire the rebate starts to loose its fire stopping. How much hot or cold smoke smoke will pass the old style 25mm rebates during a fire has as far as I can find has never been quantified.

So if smoke spread is what you want to stop is a door originally designed for fire spread suitable?. If you want to stop smoke spread, smoke seals are designed and installed for exactly that.

Perhaps the BRE should do some test they did some on activation of smoke detectors in corridors from room fires but I can not find a copy of the research report to see what kind of FR doors were used. It was some time ago so probably they never had seals.

[colin todd]

Jayjay , the dors did not have seals. They used BS 459-3 doors (and also fiddled about with domestic doors).

[William 29]

"The way I look at it... the default position is that they should be installed, because that's what all the guidance recommends.  To go away from the default, you have to argue convincingly why this is acceptably safe.  That's the test that the Courts seem to apply, so that's the test that I use".

Extracts from PAS 79:11 (draft)

The assessment of fire precautions in the fire risk assessment does not merely involve rigid comparison of existing fire precautions with standards set out in prescriptive codes of practice. Similarly, the action plan is not based on rigid adherence to prescriptive norms found in codes of practice. To adopt such an approach would not necessarily result in risk-proportionate fire precautions. Nevertheless, in assessing or formulating measures to eliminate or control fire hazards (see 3.33), it will often be appropriate, in the case of certain fire hazards, such as potential electrical faults, to adopt guidance in recognized codes of practice. This will particularly be the case where these codes of practice
are well established, universally recognized, produced by authoritative bodies with specialist knowledge regarding the hazard in question, and based on sound scientific or engineering principles (as opposed to arbitrary judgements).

......In addition, sometimes different recommendations apply to new and existing premises. For example, recommendations within guidance that supports building regulations often differ from recommendations within guidance that supports legislation applicable to existing premises.
Typically, guidance on fire protection measures for new premises (e.g. guidance that supports building regulations) is more onerous
than guidance on fire precautions in existing premises (e.g. guidance that supports the relevant fire safety legislation). This makes rigid adherence to any particular code of practice even less appropriate. It also means that guidance that supports building regulations in respect of new premises might be unduly onerous to apply for the purposes of a fire risk assessment for existing premises, constructed before the
introduction of the current building regulations.

.........This has led to a school of thought amongst some experts that the application of prescriptive codes of practice within the fire risk assessment is inappropriate. However, while there is a need for risk-proportionate fire precautions, rather than rigid application of prescriptive norms, it should be borne in mind that prescriptive codes of practice have achieved their objective; for example, it is rare for multiple
fatality deaths to occur in non-domestic premises that comply with the relevant prescriptive code of practice, unless a number of failures in fire safety management have occurred.

.............This PAS is intended to be suitable for use by, for example, fire risk assessors with a background in application or enforcement of traditional prescriptive fire protection codes of practice. Accordingly, it is assumed that published guidance will be a starting point or benchmark for assessment of the adequacy of fire precautions in the premises. It is, however, further assumed that the fire risk assessor is capable of exercising judgement to determine whether the recommendations of such guidance should be relaxed, or added to, in order to determine the appropriate level of fire precautions and to formulate a risk-proportionate action plan.

[nearlythere]

If we look at it from another angle for a moment.  Let’s say a new fire door standard comes out in 2013 (I don’t think one does by the way?) and this new BS determines due to some new fire door tests and research that all hinges on NEW fire doors need to be rated to 1200oC, whereas before around 800oC was fine.  On an FRA of an existing building would you recommend that all the hinges on all fire doors are replaced for 1200oC rated ones irrespective of if there are compensations in place?  Or would you say replace them on a “programmed plan of refurbishment works”.  For what its worth, I’ll give you my view……both would be wrong.  However if any door was replaced due to damage etc then it would be replaced with an FD30s1200 door. (I made that bit up please don’t Google it).

The point I am making is sometimes what is existing is just that existing and acceptable as it is….. if it can be justified, risk assessed and documented appropriately in the FRA.

Sorry to be coming back late to your post William but if it was the case that a new BS determined that due to some new fire door tests and research that all hinges on NEW fire doors need to be rated to 1200 C then, in tests or research, it must be because 800 C has been shown to be insufficient for a fire door. Might this mean that existing 800 C hinges are no linger suitable and should be replaced so that the door can fulfill it's purpose properly?

[William 29]

No problems....perhaps in this case the example I made up is a bad one! and I take your point. But hopefully you get the idea I'm coming from which is replacing or upgrading fire safety provisions without first looking at the benchmark and the standards at the time of construction.  I think the new PAS 79 comes at it from a common sense approach and the diagram re benchmarking provided is useful.