Fire doors letterplates and BS476

[kurnal]

do the flats have an inner protected lobby?
what is the construction and condition anf fit of the existing doors?

[Tadees]

Existing flat doors are substantial with an overhead self closer.  Smoke seals and intumescent strips are not provided.  The lobby area in the flat is packed nicely with combustibles/storage

[Auntie LIn]

For me, a key issue might well be 'how well is the letterplate fitted'?   If a great big hole has been hacked in the door, even with steel plates on either side I would have certain concerns.   However... if the hole had been cut so that it was only just big enough to allow the letter flap to operate, and there was a steel gravity or sprung door tidy on the inside, I might have less concerns.   In fact I might be more concerned about what damage would be done by removing the existing fitting and shoving something else in.

[William 29]

If the flat door is an existing one, which provides 'notional' fire resistance (whatever that means in the guide) and the flats are 2 per floor, 3 floors in total, single staircase, would you ask for letterboxes to be replaced, door to be replaced or existing letterboxes to be provided with intumescent lining, provided the flaps are metal and on both sides of the door?

If the doors are original FD30 "notional" doors with a positive self-closer, I would accept as they are. I wouldn't go strips and seals or letter box replacement/upgrade mad. I think you have to base your judgment on the likelihood of a fire and the risk that without the upgrade said fire would affect the common areas and other flats. Fine if you are dealing with a one off block but when you deal with clients that have several thousands premises  I don't think mass letterbox replacement/upgrade is justified, in my view. 

[William 29]

Section 62 Flats Guide


62.15 Original flat entrance doors may lack intumescent strips and cold smoke seals and will not have protected letterboxes. There would have been reliance on 25mm door stops to achieve smoke control. Where older doors were self-closing, this was sometimes achieved by using rising butt hinges.

62.16 Upgrading existing doors simply because they are not fitted with intumescent strips or smoke seals, or fail to meet some other requirement of current standards, should not be made a generic recommendation applicable to all existing blocks of flats. Similarly, upgrading existing letterboxes in flat entrance doors to meet current standards is not always necessary.

This will depend on:
the location of the letterbox in the door
the location of the flat within the block
the construction of the letterbox.

[Fishy]

In the UK we tend to build and manage residential flats assuming that the probability of having a fire of significant size in a flat =1.  Therefore, you must assume that you might have a fire in one of the flats & judge risk accordingly ? I?d suggest that you don?t really need to estimate the 'likelihood' of such a fire?

One also needs to bear in mind that an intumescent letter plate (not ?letter box? ? they?re painted red & belong to the Royal Mail) system can be had for around a fiver (& probably takes less than an hour to fit) ? so as part of the risk assessment you need to weigh up this pretty low cost against the risk reduction benefit achieved?  In my experience the benefits of passive fire protection are routinely underestimated (and the costs of upgrade are likewise often overestimated).