Author Topic: Fire Resisting Doors  (Read 3513 times)

Offline MPC

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Fire Resisting Doors
« on: July 26, 2010, 01:51:14 PM »
I have a client who has questioned a method of fixing a 12mm loose door stop to a hard wood frame, i have looked in the BS 8214 for reference. My suggestion is to glue the door stop and fix with 40 mm pins at 400mm centres. Does this comply with current regs. The frame is fixed to the masonry wall with the correct type fixing screws. The client is questioning whether the screws should have been fixed through the stops and infilled with hard wood pellets

Offline Auntie LIn

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Re: Fire Resisting Doors
« Reply #1 on: July 26, 2010, 07:26:19 PM »
Pin and glue or screw and glue - you could do it with just pinning or gluing, but timber these days tends not to be properly dried so shrinks on drying and starts to pull away from the frame.   Not that the stop is particularly important if you've got the right fire seals, apart from stopping the leaf from crashing through the frame.   Of greater importance is the setting of the perimeter gaps.   These need to be even around the periphery of the door leaf and set at whatever the doorset manufacturer states or not more than 4mm if you can't source this information.

Offline Tom Sutton

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Re: Fire Resisting Doors
« Reply #2 on: July 26, 2010, 08:50:06 PM »
Not that the stop is particularly important if you've got the right fire seals, apart from stopping the leaf from crashing through the frame. 

As Auntie LIn says and BS 8214:1990 gives a fuller explanation which is not contradicted by BS 8214:2008,

9.2 Single leaf, single swing, hinged doors

Single swing doors have doorstops, and it is widely recognized that door assemblies are often able to offer greater fire resistance when opening away from the direction of fire exposure. This has led to the erroneous belief that doorstops make an important contribution to fire resistance performance. Timber door leaves generally exhibit distortion due to shrinkage of the face towards the fire and the result is often seen as the edges and corners of the leaf tending to move towards the fire. Thus, if a door leaf opens in towards the fire the doorstop becomes irrelevant as the leaf distorts away from it. With a door leaf opening away from a fire the doorstop is on the exposed face and movement of the leaf edges or corners towards the fire is checked. This checking effect can be only temporary as eventually doorstops of any dimension will be charred away. When heat activated sealing systems are used, the doorstop makes no significant contribution to fire resistance. The size, type and fixing of the stop is, therefore, unimportant.
All my responses only apply to England and Wales and they are an overview of the subject, hopefully it will point you in the right direction and always treat with caution.

Offline MPC

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Re: Fire Resisting Doors
« Reply #3 on: July 27, 2010, 11:41:50 AM »
Thank you for your assistance

Offline Spanishstokey

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Re: Fire Resisting Doors
« Reply #4 on: August 04, 2010, 03:46:20 PM »
MPC..........don't mean to be a pain, but am I correct in thinking that it is 3mm?  Please point me in the right direction if I'm wrong

Regards