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Windows, doors and stairs
Published in Derek Worthing, Nigel Dann, Roger Heath, of Houses, 2021
Derek Worthing, Nigel Dann, Roger Heath
Fire doors are used to slow down or limit the spread of fire, heat and smoke in order to allow escape from a building which is on fire. They are most frequently solid core flush doors – though some panelled fire doors are manufactured. Upgrading existing doors is possible but can be quite onerous, particularly for complicated panelled doors. Vision panels (small elements of glazing) are permitted as long as the glass and its installations maintain the same fire-resisting qualities as the door itself. The minimum thickness for a fire door is 44mm, i.e. thicker than the standard 35mm for most internal doors. Fire doors are required to have specific labels to identify their characteristics.
Principles of fire
Published in Richard Lord, Fire Safety in Residential Property, 2021
Fire doors are an engineered safety product that, when properly hung and fitted, are one of the most important elements of fire protection in a building. They are designed to resist flames and stop fire spread in order to help protect life and aid effective escape. Fire doors that are fitted into an existing frame in a dwelling cannot be guaranteed to provide 30 minutes’ protection. It is only as a set that the door, frame and ironmongery achieve the overall performance, reliability and integrity necessary to provide 30 minutes’ protection in the event of a fire. Fire doors require heat expanding intumescent strips and often cold smoke seals to slow the escape of smoke and hot gases.
Regulatory requirements and basic fire safety design principles
Published in Feng Fu, Fire Safety Design for Tall Buildings, 2021
For tall buildings, the FSO only applies to the common parts. Responsible persons must ensure that tenant activities do not compromise the safety of the common parts (e.g. by placing obstructions/flammable objects in corridors or blocking fire-escape routes). Landlords should take appropriate action to minimize such risks, for example, by placing signs in prominent places instructing tenants to keep the common parts free from any obstruction and/or flammable objects. Landlords need to be mindful of these risks when drafting tenancy repair and maintenance obligations and should also ensure that regular checks are carried out/safety audits conducted on a routine basis. Certain repair works, including the replacement of fire doors, may constitute “material alterations” and must also comply with the Building Regulations.
Fire Safety of Historical Buildings: Principles and Methodological Approach
Published in International Journal of Architectural Heritage, 2019
A critically important feature of compartmentalization is the doors. Performance assessment of fire doors requires testing of a door system that includes the door, the frame, the hinges and all other fixtures. The system needs to protect the safe are from ingress of fire and smoke. In historic buildings, doors are many times, inherent fixtures of the architecture and therefore it is desirable not to intervene to attain a required level of fire resistance. Figure 2 shows a good example of such doors. The doors come from the same building at the University of Geneva and during the refurbishment it was highly desirable not to alter the doors and fixtures. Maintaining these doors requires a detailed analysis of their capacity to withstand the penetration of smoke and flames. In general, it is easy to demonstrate that massive timber doors are capable of sustaining the heat fluxes of a generalized fire for an adequate period. It is much more difficult to address their capacity to contain smoke. It is very common that minor modifications that introduce adequate seals and manage the relative motion between frame and door, will be required and therefore detailed dialogue with other stakeholders (i.e. architects and heritage experts) will be necessary.