Upgrading existing FR doors to flats

[CivvyFSO]

Budget should be no more of an issue to someone with 40,000 properties than it is to someone with 1 or 2 properties. It is relevant to the rental income, and the associations income is probably more stable that Mr Joe Bloggs' who is probably just renting out for 10 months out of each 12.

[Steven N]

I'm afraid i have to agree with Big T on this, what you want & what you will get with this ain't gonna be the same. If the orginisations RA justifys the existing doors being ok but states that in the future, doors will be upgraded when required, to current standards then how can you argue?

[jayjay]

What you need to remember is why intumescent and cold smoke seals are now fitted.

The old BS furnace tests were not pressurised furnace test and it was identified that in a real fire the pressure within the room increases. Therfore it was necessary to simulate real fire conditions in the testing of fire resisting doors so a pressurised furnace test was introduced. The result was that doors that had passed the old test failed under the new test. The solution was to provide the intumescent and cold smoke seals.

Therfore the old fire resisting doors you will find, particularly on flats may not provide half hour fire resistance and will unlikely to stop the spread of smoke.

What length of fire resistance time the old tested doors will provide can not be assessed it may be 20 minutes or it could be less than 10 minutes who can be certain.

What length of time do you base your fire risk assessment on ?.

I recently visited a 20 storey block of council flats  following a malicious fire in the bin room. All the fire resisting doors in the building are old style fire resisting doors with no seals. In this incident the smoke spread from the bin room fire as the door was open, then through a set of fire resisting doors across the corridor and entered 4 flats via the old style fire resisting front door seting off the smoke detectors within the flats.
   
This was not a particularly large fire although plastics were involved. If this was a fully developed flat fire then smoke spread would have been more extensive and possibly affected more flats and the staircases.

If you have a stay put policy How do you convince occupants to remain within their flats if smoke is entering from the lobby.

I understand that costs may be a consideration but if you know that some thing may not perform as previously expected you are obliged to identify it as a significant finding in the risk assessment. How you overcome the problem is a different matter and will need to be decided separately as some sort of phased upgrade programme.

I will always recommend the provision of intumescent and cold smoke seals as they can be life savers.

[Big T]

Ok, so we identify that All fire doors require upgrade as a matter as priority. We have 50,000 flats. cost to upgrade £600 (conservative estimate)

Thats £30,000,000. We publish an excess of around £20,000,000. We have to conform to descent homes by 2010 plus a mirread of other tosh.

How do i fix this many doors.

Answer. I can't. Not today anyway

So the solution is an upgrade over a period of years. 10 possibly. Maybe more.

And this just covers doors. It does not cover sheltered schemes with no fire alarms, flats with insufficient fire resistance with regard to floors, flat entrance doors which are not fire rated AT ALL. Flat doors containing non fire resistant glazing etc etc. These are more important issues with greater consequences than a flat entrance door without intu strips and seals.

Sorry to wee on your bonfire but regardless of what you think large landlords (especially social landlords) Have a large array of hoops to jump through and we can't spend 18 months financial excess on front doors that comply with CP3 but not ADB.

[kurnal]

What length of fire resistance time the old tested doors will provide can not be assessed it may be 20 minutes or it could be less than 10 minutes who can be certain.

What length of time do you base your fire risk assessment on ?.

I will always recommend the provision of intumescent and cold smoke seals as they can be life savers.

Yes a door with smoke seals will perform better than a door without. But how much better? None of us can quantify the benefits of retro fitting smoke seals. Too many officers are going around requiring door upgrades willy nilly without thinking it through on a risk based approach.  The fire offiers just tend to look at the building they are in at the time without having to think through the financial consequences and implications.

If Fire Officer A in town 1 visits a property and serves a notice thats fine for that building but it may deflect the landlord from dealing with a more serious issue he has identified in Town 2 where the fire service has not yet visited. The officers should consider the  organisations corporate plans before taking action.  

But why should relevant persons suffer a poor standard of safety in their home due to the companies financial constraints? You cant put a price on a life they say. But thats the way it works. Big organisations managing budgets should prioritise their expenditure on a risk based approach. Even the fire service does this in the determination of fire cover and operational response. So why should it be wrong for Big T to manage his budget in the same way?

Ok, so we identify that All fire doors require upgrade as a matter as priority. We have 50,000 flats. cost to upgrade £600 (conservative estimate)

Thats £30,000,000. We publish an excess of around £20,000,000. We have to conform to descent homes by 2010 plus a mirread of other tosh.

How do i fix this many doors.

You dont. You carry out a risk assessment and produce a plan to improve those doors that are highest risk - taking all risk factors into account. Provded your improvement and repair budget is a reasonable proportion of your turnover and you have a contingency to deal with crisis issues as they arise no judge in the land would criticise you.

[Big T]

Glad you agree.

All assessments cover fire doors and include the corporate plan which in turn will be signed up to by all parties throughout the company, all assessments are reviewed and the plan will evolve with time

[nearlythere]

What length of fire resistance time the old tested doors will provide can not be assessed it may be 20 minutes or it could be less than 10 minutes who can be certain.

What length of time do you base your fire risk assessment on ?.

I will always recommend the provision of intumescent and cold smoke seals as they can be life savers.

Yes a door with smoke seals will perform better than a door without. But how much better? None of us can quantify the benefits of retro fitting smoke seals. Too many officers are going around requiring door upgrades willy nilly without thinking it through on a risk based approach.  The fire offiers just tend to look at the building they are in at the time without having to think through the financial consequences and implications.

If Fire Officer A in town 1 visits a property and serves a notice thats fine for that building but it may deflect the landlord from dealing with a more serious issue he has identified in Town 2 where the fire service has not yet visited. The officers should consider the  organisations corporate plans before taking action.  

But why should relevant persons suffer a poor standard of safety in their home due to the companies financial constraints? You cant put a price on a life they say. But thats the way it works. Big organisations managing budgets should prioritise their expenditure on a risk based approach. Even the fire service does this in the determination of fire cover and operational response. So why should it be wrong for Big T to manage his budget in the same way?

Ok, so we identify that All fire doors require upgrade as a matter as priority. We have 50,000 flats. cost to upgrade £600 (conservative estimate)

Thats £30,000,000. We publish an excess of around £20,000,000. We have to conform to descent homes by 2010 plus a mirread of other tosh.

How do i fix this many doors.

You dont. You carry out a risk assessment and produce a plan to improve those doors that are highest risk - taking all risk factors into account. Provded your improvement and repair budget is a reasonable proportion of your turnover and you have a contingency to deal with crisis issues as they arise no judge in the land would criticise you.

I'm not sure I picked up on the number and location of doors you are referrng to for assessment for possible upgrading but you could maybe carry out research of relevant CoPs to determine where fire door are not needed.  Just because a fire door is there it does not mean that it is there for that reason. It could be , and I have found this, that bulk buying of a door type can be more cost effective. Sometimes FR doors are installed because they are more robust than egg box types but do not neccessarily need to be FR.
Just a suggestion.

[Martin]

Jayjay writes
"I recently visited a 20 storey block of council flats  following a malicious fire in the bin room. All the fire resisting doors in the building are old style fire resisting doors with no seals. In this incident the smoke spread from the bin room fire as the door was open, then through a set of fire resisting doors across the corridor and entered 4 flats via the old style fire resisting front door seting off the smoke detectors within the flats."
We always look at bin stores They are well known as  risk areas which defeat some parts of sterile common areas planning. We go down the route of sort out the bin stores. maintenance of self closers. move to speperate external bin stores in worst cases, regular/frequent inspections by caretakers (briefed on why/what they are inspecting for)
Yes some  1"inch rebate doors aren't very good but as long as we check at decorating time and have some sort of thought through plan for upgrading I would be happy argue in court/tribunal or even in front of coroner we we were not in breach of law.

[jokar]

That is good risk assessment, make a decision and the onus of responsibility is on you.

[Redone]

Met with fire officers regarding upgrades at a care home,agreed 5 years was reasonable period for completion of work.

[CivvyFSO]

I would be happy argue in court/tribunal or even in front of coroner we we were not in breach of law.

I am sure that would make you feel loads better if you were in a coroners court.

[Martin]

Use of word happy not appropriate. I have been in coroner's court and they are not happy.  However I could look at family of deceased and say I believed we met our legal requirements. If I could not in all honesty defend our position I would be banging on my chief execs door as a matter of urgency.

There is no obvious answer to how long to upgrade old doors to new doors. Redone says his fire officers say 5 years. I suspect if asked off the record they would admit this was plucked out of the sky as something the Fire Authority and the
RP could both live with.

[JC100]

On another note.

I've just been reading 5588-1 and read that some glazed elements in doors are fire resisting in integrity only and this glass cannot be used between flats and common corridors / stairs as they are non insulating.

If flat doors are made up from these glazed elements, is it something that companies / landlords should be addressing when upgrading doors with smoke seals and intumescent strips?

Would the fire service enforce this?

Your opinions please

[CivvyFSO]

Georgian wired glass is widely accepted in escape routes despite offering no insulation properties. Your typical high rise council flat building would be rife with georgian wired glass.

I would suggest that it is down to risk assessment again. If there is something on the opposite side of the glazing where the lack of insulation could be a problem then it should be addressed, however this is extremely unlikely. Something that can be more of an issue is how the glazing is fixed in place. The weakest link can be the rebate/beading etc if not installed correctly.

[CivvyFSO]

And to answer your question, I cannot see any FRS enforcing pyro glass where georgian wired is in place. (in this sort of scenario.)