Fire Doors

[head clansman]

hi brad

brad wrote

Apparantly if you convert your loft, Building Regs make you fit a 30 minute fire door to every room in the house that opens onto the landing or hallway, with the exception of bathroms. This is to ensure a clear means of escape from the loft to the front door.

Until recently all these fire doors had to have closers fitted as stated above.

from your first post having glass to throw light through the ground floor (which is really nice) will that still come up to fire standards.

ground floor extensions can you extended on top of that instead of loft
( then your only on first floor the same as the rest of the bedrooms ) will that alter fire regs in any way for you , just a thought . hc

 

[BradNaylor]

I have just knocked up an email to the head of our local Building Control department. Before I send it I'd appreciate comments as to its suitability.

Dear Paul,

Further to our correspondence recently regarding the pre-plaster inspection, work has continued apace and we are nearing completion of the job. I am now making and installing the interior joinery. It has always been my intention to make and fit solid oak doors with glazed panels to the new kitchen and study which lead off the hall.

At some point in the next year or so however, we are planning on converting the loft of the house into a bedroom and en-suite. It has been pointed out to me that in order to meet the Building Regulations regarding loft conversions all doors leading onto access routes will then have be of 30 minute fire resistance. Obviously I don’t want to do the same job twice so my question is this;

As a professional cabinetmaker and carpenter, I am more than capable of making oak doors which fulfil the relevant criteria, using Pyro glass panels and all the required intumescent seals and materials. Will this be acceptable to Building Control, or am I forced to use certified fire doors bought in from a mainstream manufacturer and compromise on design and quality?

I would appreciate your views and advice.

Kind regards

 

[Shadowfax]

Duncan, that should be fine.
If they need further information you will probably need to point out that to fully conform to the BS you would need to be installing door sets.
If they are happy to accept the installation of doors into existing frames then, technically, the whole BS scenario is dead in the water!

What you are asking for is, in my opinion which is based on 36 years experience of this sort of thing, a good solution for a house, assuming that your doors and frames do have all the bells and whistles.
You are only after a 30 minute door and frame and I am sure whatever you make, if it is in oak and about 40mm thick, will fit the bill.

If your local BCO does not understand that then you might have to be a little more persuasive.

Good luck and best wishes.

SF

 

[Anonymous]

The omission of closers was quite a recent reg change- due (so my bco told me) to the fact that as soon as a house was signed off the householders either removed them, or worse propped doors open. Which meant that doors that would normally be closed anyway where left open and thus increased the risk.

Quite correct. We had a loft conversion in our previous house, so had to have door closers. If you have small children and/or pets, door closers are impossible to live with - nearly decapitated our cat a couple of times :shock: Like everyone else, we removed ours the day after the inspector left.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

in my experience thats exactly why they removed the perco closers for fear of taking fingers off etc

On site now i am seeing more and more finger guards going on fire door keep shuts (ones with closers) fire door keep locked don't require them.

 

[Shadowfax]

A door closer should never slam the door. Unfortunately this is almost always what Perko closers do. This is why I would never accept them unless pushed.
A good quality door closer will not take fingers off but it will close a door fully against the stops - slowly and effectively, every time.

Perkos are a pain and are always being removed or disabled in other ways but they do not represent even a shadow of the real thing which has to be a hydraulic device.

A fire resisting door is useless unless it is shut. If it does not shut automatically (or is kept locked) it is going to be no use at all and sometimes people will be hurt as a result.

Cheers,

SF

 

[chipchaser]

Hi Brad,

Unfortunate that the door you like is a FD60. FD30 doors from that source are only :lol: £650 but, as far as I can see, not available in the pattern you prefer.

First a question: I guess you have already considered whether there is any chance of providing an alternative means of escape by a second staircase? Probably not possible in most ordinary folk’s houses and even if it were it might work out as expensive as providing fire doors depending on the work required and how much of it you could do, e.g. maybe make and install the staircase.

Table B1(Bldg Regs Fire Safety AD-B1) requires any door forming part of the enclosures to a protected stairway in a single family dwelling to be FD20/E20. That is easier to achieve than FD60 or FD30 so you might be allowed some latitude. There are some standard constructions, which have already been tested, shown in manufacturer’s literature. So, for example, 7mm Pilkington Pyrodur in an appropriate door construction can give 30 minutes integrity but not much insulation. 15mm Pilkington Pyrostop in an appropriate door construction can give 60 minutes integrity and 30 minutes insulation.

Pilkingtons Pyrodur Plus, FIRE TEST SUMMARY, REFERENCE: RF00137 at: http://www.pilkington.com/resources/fir ... f00137.pdf
shows one of several tested constructions. I know that it shows two sheets of glass rather than 4 panes but you can try asking your Building Inspector whether he would accept a 4 pane door made on these lines. As long as the bottom rail is more than 100mm deep (Bldg Regs Fire Safety AD-B1, Table A4) there is no limit on how much glazing can be fitted but obviously you must stick to the tested sizes of the joinery elements (or larger) if you are relying on that test to support your design. If he won’t take the responsibility or it falls outside his remit it should be possible to have a design based on tested constructions assessed by a suitably competent person.

Assessment is referred to in Part B of the Building Regs, Appendix A, Introduction, clause 1.b. You would have to find a suitable company or fire safety engineer and pay them for their professional opinion. I have no idea how much they might charge you but assuming the design you offer is acceptable it shouldn’t take them too long to do and if you can convince them this is a one off for yourself maybe they might do you a reasonable deal. If you only need 1 or 2 doors it may not be worth the cost and the hassle to you.

My experience to date is that all the non insulating glass requires the use of chamfered overlapping beads which I find not so attractive. If you want to use square or moulded beads you would have to use an insulating glass like Pyrostop which will be thicker and more expensive. There are other manufacturers with other design details although they are all broadly similar.

Envirograf produce all sorts of useful things for upgrading existing doors but their surface applied coatings and films are not ideal for making new doors as it is easier to make a proper door which doesn’t require special maintenance care. Their intumescent cloth is ok for making new doors when laminated between ply panels which protect the cloth from physical damage.

Note that B3 Section 4, 4.7, requires floors, both old and new, to have full 30 minutes fire resistance if:

they separate circulation spaces or
the new area created is greater than 50sq metres in area or
the new area contains more than 2 habitable rooms.

Some domestic floors only meet the “modified 30 minute standard”.

Hope this is of some help

Graham