The Ultimate Guide To PAS 24 Doors
Nothing is more Important to people than the safety and wellbeing of their families and loved ones – and equipping your home with the best available security and safety features helps provide that peace of mind! Doors and windows are the first line of defence against any potential break-in or illegal breach of our homes – there are certain standards pertaining to the quality of design and manufacture of windows and doors established to help ensure safety in our properties. The primary standard is PAS 24, introduced with guidelines as to the mandatory minimum standards – here is some information on PAS 24 doors and the standards required of them to achieve this important accreditation:
PAS 24
Publicly Available Specification, or PAS as it is commonly referred to, is a product benchmark for the quality assured standard set by an industry to ensure all manufacturers are designing, manufacturing, and selling products that adhere to a specific quality and standard. The British Standards Institution (BSI) manage the definition and distribution of the PAS standards – the PAS 24 Certificate is a standard of testing security performance of door sets and windows introduced in February 2016 – when installing or replacing doors and windows in your home, it is strongly advised that you only consider items that adhere to this standard.
SBD
Secured by Design is an official police security initiative introduced to improve the security of buildings and surrounding premises to ensuring safe places to work and live. PAS 24 accreditation is typically a baseline requirement for achieving SBD standards.
Legal Requirement
It is a legal requirement for any new build properties and developments to be PAS 24, or an equivalent standard, recognised with regards to all windows and doors to meet Building Regulations. To achieve PAS 24 a manufacturer must submit their products for an independent, third-party testing company certified by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS). There is no ‘grading’ system for PAS 24 – it is a minimum standard – a product either passes or fails! Your door and window supplier should provide you with copies of PAS 24 certificates for any product you have bought from them.
PAS 24 Tests
To achieve the certification, all doors and windows are subjected to a series of tests for both security and weather resistance. The products are tested as follows:
Security Tests
For doors the tests are to simulate an attempted break-in – the testing engineer employs different methods to assess and test the strength and security of the door and lock cylinder by applying different forces and pressures over a 30 second timeframe without shock force.
This is then supplemented with pressure applied from a hydraulic source to push against, and test the strength of, the door frame. Further tests are performed to measure the doors resistance to shock forces, such as using a heavy bag to repeatedly strike the door in a pendulum motion, and then a ‘hard impact’ test to check the individual door components resistance to shock impact forces.
This is followed by a manual test whereby an engineer has fifteen minutes to conduct a series of tests simulating common lock-breaking methods and tools to attempt to gain unauthorised entry – these tests evaluate the doors resistance to attempted breach of the door.
A similar testing process is executed to establish the security efficiency of windows – the glazing frames have pressure applied on the weakest aspect, which are the window corners, to test the beading and the tensile strength of the glazed panel itself. The windows are also subjected to a mechanical loading test replicating an attempted break-in to establish the strength of the locking mechanisms and such, as well as the fifteen minute engineer test of attempted breach of the window using standardised tools such as a burglar might employ.
Weather Resistance Tests
Both doors and windows are subjected to weather resistance tests they must satisfy for PAS 24 accreditation. The doors and windows are subjected to a pressure chamber where varying levels of air pressure is exerted, and water jets sprayed to the exterior face to test for water tightness and leakage. This extensive – and intensive – testing of these windows and doors are designed and performed to offer reassurance and peace of mind for property owners and developers alike.
Approved Document Q
This is an approved set of guidelines that complement the existing Schedules applied to the legal certification of the Building Regulations 2010. Document Q approval ensures the security of buildings, mainly house dwellings, which require new buildings to be capable of resisting unauthorised access or illegal entry. To meet the requirements doors and windows must comply with PAS 24:2022 standards.
Fire Safety
It is worthwhile noting that, whilst PAS 24 testing and accreditation deals specifically with the security aspect of your doors and windows, you must also always consider the fire safety aspect of these features. Consult with an established and fully-accredited door manufacturer and supplier who will be able to offer you expert industry information on external fire doors and fire-resistant doors which can provide all the PAS 24 door security, but also complement these important safety features with the vitally important fire safety protection for your family and property.
