The important things to think about when installing school doors

As we’ve seen over the years, every door – quite literally – needs careful consideration. From the straightforward doors in your home, preventing drafts and providing security etc. right through to 4-hour fire doors in manufacturing premises … and everything in between.

Many of the considerations revolve around whether it’s a building used by the public or not and whether it is governed by regulations, and one of the most demanding of environments is schools. This is primarily because the people who use them have a unique characteristic – youth! That’s not to say that the teachers aren’t important, of course, but you know what we mean!

Their youth poses some special problems – children in the main will not be as unflappable or be able to control their emotions and activities as (most) adults can, and the very young ones won’t know what to do in an emergency, and will need very careful looking after.

So let’s take a look at a number of problems that school doors go a long way towards solving.

Fire resistance

It goes without saying that schools – along with all types of educational establishments and public buildings – need fire resistant doors (along with a very well thought out evacuation policy). This will obviously include internal fire doors, where appropriate, and fire exits.

Special care needs to be taken as many children won’t be old enough to know what to do in an emergency, or will panic, and remember that some will be too young to read!

Here are some links to useful government sources of information:

Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005

Building bulletin 100

Fire safety risk assessment – educational establishments

The legislation and building regulations are (necessarily) complex, and include considerations such as:

the provision of clear and effective access within the building
the weight of the school doors
glazing options, taking into account the required light and vision levels

Every year there are over 1,000 fires in schools that are attended by the emergency services – that’s an awful lot of fires involving such vulnerable potential victims, so clearly it’s absolutely vital to get it right. Fire doors for schools come in different specifications, as we’ve seen previously, with ratings from 30 to 240 minutes. You can examine some of the options by following this link.

Fingersafe doors

Every year, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA,) around 30,000 children trap their fingers in doors at home, in school, at a nursery, or when out and about for example in shops. In more than 1,500 of these accidents their fingers will be crushed, and the children will need surgery – sometimes ongoing reconstructive surgery – while some injuries fortunately can be as mild as soreness and bruising, and can therefore be treated with ice and cuddles.

Did you know that a closing door can exert up to 40 tons per square inch of pressure along the gap between its hinges.

Hand injuries, although unlikely to be life-threatening, can be life-altering. An injured hand can make everyday tasks difficult and tiresome, if not impossible.

Thankfully there is a wonderfully innovative solution, called Safehinge – a brilliantly clever design that eliminates any chance of fingers being trapped by using a specialist pivot set that removes the gap at the hinge when opening and closing the door. Here’s an image so you can see how it works.

There are other advantages of Safehinge too:

Ease of installation. Since both of the pivots are adjustable using easy access mechanisms, there is significant flexibility in the design, and as a consequence the doors can still be quickly and easily installed even when there are building imperfections and/or discrepancies (as there so often are!) between the architectural designs and reality
No need to replace. With so many things to worry about, what you don’t want to worry about is replacing doors that are doing the job that they were designed to do. In the nicest possible way, you want to forget about them safe in the knowledge that they will continue to perform outstandingly for years to come. And that’s exactly what you can do with Safehinge They have been classified as ‘Severe Duty’ under British Standards, meaning that they are suitable for environments where they will undergo “frequent violent usage”. And what better example of such an environment is there than a school? The doors have also undergone cyclic testing to over 1.5 million cycles without any sign of failure. This reliability is down to the quality of materials that they are made from – 316 Stainless Steel and anodised aluminium – and the excellence of their design
Huge lifetime cost savings. Traditionally, retro-fitted hinge covers were used to provide something approaching the protection that Safehinge now offers; these are renowned for having durability issues, breaking on average every 6 – 24 months. Being expensive to replace, the lifetime cost is substantial.

Security and safety

This needs to work in both directions – protecting the children and school equipment and assets (e.g. computers) from unwanted intruders, while ensuring that the children and staff can evacuate safely should an emergency arise.

All external door locks and window catches need to provide a level of security. Some fire exit doors with push bars may need to be upgraded, but (of course) fire escape routes should not be locked off. Exit doors can be fitted with alarms to warn of unauthorised use during normal hours. It may be worth fitting locks to windows as well as doors. There should be strict control of keys with key storage boxes in alarmed areas. Regular checks ought to be in place to confirm the whereabouts of keys. Main school keys should never be given to pupils or parents.

Doors fitted with push button combination locks and self-closers can give additional security to offices and staffrooms used by large numbers of staff, where constant locking and unlocking by key would be a nuisance. As the combination can be compromised at any time, these locks should not be used to protect secure areas.

Noise

Educational establishments – especially schools for younger children – can be very noisy places! Quite apart from the general desire to keep classrooms as quiet as possible to keep concentration levels high, there are music rooms, chemistry labs (perhaps with the odd explosion!), and screams and shouts from playgrounds to contend with!

This is where acoustic doors, sometimes called soundproof doors, come into their own.

Again, there are various options, many of which we’ve covered before. Note that there are some circumstances where a door with a lower overall rating will block a particular frequency better than a higher rated door, so you will need to talk to experts who specialise in acoustic doors and who can give you excellent advice and guidance.

Special Needs schools

Please be aware that special regulations apply to Special Needs schools, such as the Part M regulations which require a white fire strip on the leading edge of all doors (even if they’re not fire rated) to help the visually impaired.