Choosing The Perfect Doors For Your Commercial Buildings
Choosing the perfect doors for your commercial building needs careful considerations on different levels – whilst you want your premises to look as appealing and attractive as possible, you must always remember the security and fire safety aspects for the protection of your buildings’ occupants and users. It is both a mandatory and legal requirement for many public, commercial, and residential buildings to have installed certificated and approved fire doors – failure to comply with these specifications can have serious consequences resulting in criminal prosecution or more tragic human consequences. The responsibility for these issues lies with the building owner or appointed manager and they have the legal and moral obligation for ensuring these safety obligations are fulfilled through ensuring all possible safety measures are in place to provide the best safety for all occupants of the building in the event of a fire outbreak.
Commercial Door Requirements
The doors installed in commercial buildings form an important part of a passive fire protection system for a building’s safety as well as providing physical security. Doors in commercial buildings must have been specifically tested and certificated to satisfy the mandatory standards before installation. These fire doors for commercial buildings are constructed to specific fire ratings, based on the length of time they are designed to keep heat, flame and smoke contained – an FD30 door will contain the danger elements for up to 30 minutes, FD60 for up to 60 minutes and so on. Each fire door must have, and display, permanent labels specifying their fire door certification and ALL fire doors must be inspected regularly to maintain their condition and ensure that they are fit for purpose.
Door Materials
As the likelihood is that many of the doors in a commercial building will be required to be fire doors and will therefore have to be stronger and more ‘resilient’ than standard doors, they will be constructed from different materials. Most will have a strong composite core and will be finished in fire retardant facias and door furniture. Many commercial buildings, dependent upon their environment and the building’s function, will avoid wood doors because of a tendency to warp in certain conditions – installing specially constructed and tested fire doors will avoid this issue! Doors for commercial buildings should be built to last and be easy to repair to help keep maintenance costs minimal.
Environment
Depending on the use of the commercial building, and the door placements within, there are different options for installing commercial doors – a warehouse, for example, may need a strong security door, whereas an office door may require strength, but also an attractive, perhaps more decorative finish.
Aesthetics
Your commercial premises are likely to impact upon the first impressions of any visitors to your building so you will want them to have a certain level of ‘kerb appeal’ – this may vary in importance depending upon the commercial use of the building! Doors for commercial buildings do not have to look ‘industrial’ as such – many commercial doors are constructed to be aesthetically pleasing as well as functional. Exterior doors constructed from galvanized steel can look sleek and smart as well as being practical, whilst internal glass doors look smart and professional and can also be supplied as fire resistant and strong. Timber doors look both smart and portray strength and security and many fire-resistant doors are constructed from wood.
It is important to note that all security and fire doors for commercial buildings should be installed by appropriately trained people.
Enfield Doors – for bespoke and commercial fire doors
Enfield Doors, are an established bespoke door manufacturers in the UK trading for many years and manufacturing doors of all types to every environment across industry and the home. Their knowledgeable and experienced staff can advise you on all aspects of soundproof doors including manufacture, installation, maintenance and security. If you would like further information on our company, visit our home page , or please contact us and we will respond as quickly as possible. We look forward to helping you.
