Fire Doors

[Tom Sutton]

One of my latest enquiries please comment on the lack of knowledge by those concerned?

"Can you please "advise" we carry out regular maintenance & repairs for 3 local Hotels that are part of a national group of Hotels. At present we have been asked to supply a quote to up grade approx 65 internal doors following an inspection by the fire officer. The fire officer is unfortunately away on a lengthy holiday so I cannot contact him.

The hotel is an old Georgian building with 60 rooms. The doors to each room are heavy 6 panel (solid doors) very old but due to there age there are no FD30 FD60 stickers  to say whether the doors are in fact fire doors to start with. The Hotel are not only asking for a quote but the want a certificate from the installer to say that the doors have been installed to BS476 afterwards. The actual doors are in fairly good condition and will convert easily. Can you offer any guidance on this matter."

[Bobbins]

The frames will also be of an unknown performance so upgrading the doors is not acceptable either; the full door sets will need upgrading. Wait for him to get back and hit him with several plans to upgrade with justifications and expected performance outcomes, i.e. different levels of upgrade. He will then need to engage with your client on the new plans, and he will have to provide a reason why each of the proposed levels of upgrade would or wouldn't be acceptable. 

[Tom Sutton]

The frames will also be of an unknown performance so upgrading the doors is not acceptable either; the full door sets will need upgrading. 

How would you upgrade the frames?

[jokar]

You don't you put new in as a door set.  But why oh why.

[kurnal]

The doors and frames need a detailed survey to assess their strengths and weaknesses.

You cannot "upgrade" and then expect to be given a BS476 test certificate. But many heritage doors can be upgraded to improve their fire performance towards that which would be required to pass a BS476 test.

There are many proprietory systems on the market with details of doors and door sets that have been upgraded and their resulting fire performance, many of which have been subject to BS476 test. Some are better than others for reasons I cannot discuss here but will be pleased to discuss by pm. Now if you use their products to their spec and are careful to follow the instructions exactly, you are entitled to apply the test certificate label supplied with the product.

There are also research documents published by English Heritage with test results commissioned by them (tests carried out by IFC) to show the likely performance of doors before and after upgrading. "Timber panelled doors and fire - upgrading the fire resistance performance of timber panelled doors and frames"

 I have only a hard copy of this document, it can still be found here:
http://products.ihs.com/cis/Doc.aspx?AuthCode=&DocNum=251605
but I dont know the cost of dwnloading.

And of course theres a wealth of good information on www.firesafe.org- but of course you will know all about that Tom!
 

[Tom Sutton]

IMO the only way to achieve BS 476 standard is to fix a certified fire door set. Any upgraded door will only ever be a nominal fire door even if the method of upgrade has been tested however in this time of risk assessment if the RP considers an upgraded fire door is satisfactory, so be it.

Kurnal the research documents published by English Heritage is this the one. http://www.helm.org.uk/upload/pdf/eh6.pdf?

[Bobbins]

As usual the Kurnal has provided a very good answer.

Use an expert to do some invasive inspection; removal of the architraves from a sample of doors is a must, establishing if the doors and surrounds are hard or soft wood and if they have the required thickness. Also surveying how the doors are hung and fit in the frames and don’t forget the door furniture. It is a lot of effort for no guarantee that they meet the required 30 mins. The only way to do it properly is to use third party certificated products installed by third party certificated installers. That should get the rubber stamp from the FRS no questions asked. It might be possible to do a bit of upgrading and improve other measures to compensate for the lack of test evidence on the doors.

I think MR Todd must be on holiday as I know he has very strong opinions on fire doors and he hasn’t commented yet.