Fire doors for escape purposes

[lingmoor]

Hi

One and a half fire doors are fitted to a room that requires a fire door, however only one is needed for escape purposes due to only six people working in the room. Now one full leaf is fitted with a self-closer but the other is not and is bolted at the top with a flush bolt. Can anyone see a problem with this? I was always under the impression that if doors are there then they should be both made available for escape purposes.

Cheers

[Golden]

Lingmoor I don't see a significant problem in your scenario but if you're worried maybe you could secure the doors with a bolt and padlock although it would probably be cheaper to fit a self closer; it would be useful to have a little more detail on what the fire doors are protecting. However this is one of my pet hates! I've seen a lot of this in the past few years (mainly in new schools) where the design needs the extra door width to cope with the number of occupants but then put a bolt on them! This works neither way - the door isn't available for escape purposes as its bolted and once unbolted will not close. The lazy little sh*ts teenagers that occupy the schools soon learn to open the slave leaf and use this rather than the main door leaf; I've expended a decent amount of time convincing occupiers that these doors have to be fitted with SC devices and am finally getting through to them.

Why is this not picked up at the design/sign off stage?

[lingmoor]

Hi Golden

securing it with a bolt and padlock would still be securing it though...the reason I posed this question is that I assumed that if you had doors there, no matter if they were required, then they should still be available to open should a fire occur, especially if that is a fire exit route. This is a new Medical Engineering workshops and obviously has been passed by BC and with that I would imagine the Fire Service in consultation. The slave was put there for wider loads that they need to take in and out.

[Golden]

Not really - you only need the door width for the occupiers and for six people it could be the smallest width possible and inward opening - as you point out the extra door width is probably there in anticipation of equipment needed to be installed in the workshops. Its the same situation occasionally where you get 2/3 doors from an office - not all of them may be required for MoE purposes and could be fitted with deadlocks or blocked by desks but in those circumstances it would be advisable to indicate the escape route. Your more important consideration if it is required as a fire resisting door set is to ensure that it is closed in the event of a fire occurring in the workshop hence why I suggested locking the door or fitting a SC device.

[lingmoor]

Cheers for that Golden, yes I think the self-closer is the way to go as they occasionally keep in open once they've gone through with their kit.

[Tom Sutton]

Check out http://www.crisis-response.com/forum/index.php?topic=6232.0 on a similar situation.