The Importance Of Fire Timber Doors In The Public Sector

All public sector buildings must treat fire safety as a major priority – there are both legal and moral responsibilities to provide as safe an environment as possible for all building occupants and users. There are government guidelines and mandatory conditions imposed on the relevant responsible people for these buildings.

Here is some information on the role of the fire doors that play such a large part of that safety provision for these environments:

Fire Doors In Public Buildings

Fire doors, in any location, form part of any buildings passive fire protection.  Fire doors are effective in compartmentalising the building thereby controlling and containing the potential passage of all the harmful elements of a fire outbreak such as flame, heat and smoke.

This compartmentalisation helps allow for a safe evacuation of a building for the occupants, and restricts damage to the building itself whilst the emergency services are attending the building.

Fire doorsets consist of specialist components designed to restrict any spread of fire for specified time periods – this restriction helps protect the designated escape route from a building, something that is especially important in public sector buildings.

Some public sector environments such as hospitals, care homes, and residential facilities are often occupied by those who are perhaps more vulnerable and for whom evacuation of a building is more difficult – the escape routes in these buildings need protecting for as long as possible for safe egress for all occupants.

Fire Door Classifications

Fire door classifications are very important – a door classification is established based on the time period that the fire door is able to safely contain and resist the harmful elements of a fire outbreak. Forfor example, a FD30 fire door can resist those harmful fire elements for a minimum of 30 minutes, a FD60 fire door can offer the same level of protection for a minimum of 60 minutes, a FD90 fire door for 90 minutes and FD120 fire door for 120 minutes.

Fire doors are constructed of fire-resistant materials and are fitted with smoke control features such as intumescent seals which expand when exposed to excess heat to form a barrier around the frame of a door to prevent potentially deadly smoke from passing from the fire outbreak area into any adjoining room or space. Public sector buildings usually have the higher protection level doors installed – especially in those buildings where vulnerable people are present.

Responsibility

Every public sector building has a nominated ‘Responsible Person’ charged with fire safety procedures – this is usually the building owner or an appointed building or facilities manager. The Regulatory Reform Act (Fire Safety) Order 2005 dictates that the Responsible Person must perform regular fire risk assessments on the building and ensure all steps are taken to reduce and/or remove any identified fire hazards and risks. They must also ensure that all fire safety equipment is installed, checked and maintained on a regular basis – this includes the regular maintenance of all fire doors.

Fire Door Inspections

The general recommendations suggest that fire doors be thoroughly checked at least once a year – although this largely depends on factors such as the building size, age, use, and environment.

For example, in large residential buildings all communal fire doors must be checked at least every 3 months and in environments where the fire doors may be subjected to heavy use and considerable footfall, such as a hospital or school, then these checks must be more frequent, perhaps weekly. In the event of any damage being discovered – cracks or dents in the doors, frame or any gaps around the door frame, must be reported and repaired or replaced as soon as possible.

Qualified and experienced fire door inspectors can conduct a professional and thorough inspection that may be able to detect potential issues that perhaps the untrained eye cannot see – but there is guidance on how to inspect a fire door available from the relevant government office who can supply a checklist to support the Responsible Person in this task.

Certification

Testing is a vital part of having a fire doorset officially certified, and to make this aspect more robust, all fire doors must be thoroughly exposed to a robust, third-party series of tests at a nominated independent test site.

The fire door manufacturer must be audited by a third-party to provide evidence of this appropriate testing. This process is to ensure that the doors have been tested and will perform as designed in the event of a fire outbreak and are ‘fit-for-purpose’ as well as providing traceability – and thus responsibility – throughout the door construction supply chain.

All fire doors must be issued with, and display, the appropriate identifying labels and information relevant to the chosen certification scheme. This allows any repairs or replacement parts of the door to be easily traced back to the original manufacturer, supplier and testing facility, so that the door can be restored to its original safety-proven condition and all compliance to be maintained.