Author Topic: Fire doors. Would you employ a third party to certificate all doors in every FRA  (Read 7097 times)

Offline nim

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To what lengths would/should a Fire Risk Assessor go to to verify that all the components of a fire door meet the necessary requirements?

Would you employ a third party to certificate all doors in every FRA?

Would you verify that the all the components comply?

Would you require strict compliance or would you accept a tolerance of non compliance?
« Last Edit: April 13, 2017, 09:47:39 AM by wee brian »

Offline AnthonyB

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A planned maintenance scheme by competent persons should identify defects via detailed inspection, priced appropriately for the time and labour involved and should be looked for during an FRA.

I'd be surprised if most FRAs are priced to allow a full FDIS style inspection and report on every single door.

It doesn't mean that the assessor shouldn't look at doors of course and recommend as appropriate (from individual door repairs to a full healthcheck across the site).

If the FDIS methodology is used for the door health-check this will prioritise actions so that they can be done based on the severity of the non compliance and consequent risk.

Also using the principles in PAS79 an assessor can make a pragmatic decision on the urgency of upgrading notional doors, i.e. those without seals and brushes or with seals and without brushes where you might expect smoke control.

Sometimes it's an immediate urgent upgrade, sometimes it's gradual wear & tear upgrading - it all depends on the deficiencies, other controls, persons at risk and the nature of the building.

If it was all about strict upgrade to latest standards a lot of heritage buildings would shut!
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Offline Fishy

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No different from any other fire protection installation that contributes to fire risk. 

If there's a planned preventative maintenance (PPM) regime in place that involves competent persons maintaining the doors (in accordance with BS 8214) then that probably ought to give you comfort that they would do what they're meant to - after all if we were talking about a sprinkler system and there were comprehensive maintenance cert's available then as part of a FRA you probably wouldn't look too hard at whether the design of the system complied with BS EN 12845? 

If, however, the premises were reliant upon the fire resisting doorsets to control fire risk, and there wasn't evidence of a PPM regime being in place, then it might be prudent to recommend that a) a 'benchmark' survey and assessment is conducted to indicate what performance is likely (FDIS-type activity); b) if necessary, remedial works are carried out to improve fire resistance performance; and c) a PPM regime is implemented.

What we've seen in the past few years is that the status of passive fire protection (PFP) has gone up significantly, and all the good stuff as regards maintenance and inspection that we've been used to applying as a matter of routine to the active fire protection has started to be applied to PFP - hence the FIRAS-type schemes for installers and maintainers and the FDIS 'qualification'.  ASFP has contributed to this with all the guidance they've produced.  That's as it should be, in my book - the fact is that when we design most buildings the amount of money we spend on PFP usually dwarfs what we spend on the active kit, & there's really no good excuse for failing to maintain it. 

Offline wee brian

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Before this ends in an endless and unnecessary debate about unnecessary banter, I'm deleting it all and closing this topic.

Please play nicely. Banter is fine (its an internet bulletin board). Just keep it friendly and try to keep some focus on the OP.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2017, 09:48:19 AM by wee brian »