As specialists in our field, Fire Door Experts are constantly pushing for a raising of standards to provide better passive fire protection with regards to fire door installation and maintenance.

It still amazes us that there is still no real regulation around fire door installation!

Something that recently piqued the interest of Si West, Fire Door Experts Managing Director, was a technical document published by Richard Smith at NHBC. One section in particular highlighted the common practice fire doors being installed and offered for inspection at the pre-plaster stage of building works.

Why should that create such interest?

Fire doors need to be installed with exacting 2-4mm tolerances; as timber doors are made from natural species, any additional moisture added to the building’s atmosphere will see these natural material products change shape and size.

Add to this the fact that fire doors are widely installed by non-3rd party accredited installers in new builds, and the accuracy of installation reduces further.

Fire door leaf manufacturers are voicing concerns about their doors being installed in such conditions and whether the product warranty remains valid as stored and installed outside the recommended parameters, but more importantly, whether their passive fire protection properties remain!

These thoughts, and others gathered from reading various blogs and forums, triggered a letter from Si to Richard. Our common sense solution put forward..?

Why not just make it mandatory that ALL fire doors in ALL buildings MUST be installed and signed off by 3rd party accredited fire door installers?

Whether Si’s letter played a part or not, we can’t be sure, but it was very pleasing to read NHBC announce a U-turn on this subject shortly after the letter was sent.

Amended guidance was published in a new technical update which now offers three options for installers and contractors to help maintain the protection offered by fire door-sets and testing for integrity:

Option 1

Fire door frames installed at pre-plaster stage is still a valid option

Option 2

Fire door linings installed at pre-plaster stage to allow the fitting of the frame at a later stage.

Option 3

Fire door frames installed after pre-plaster with architraves not fitted until satisfactory inspection to ensure the linear gap is correctly fire stopped.

The NHBC is also conducting trials to assess the viability of 3rd-party accredited installers, which is a move that has been welcomed by fire door manufacturers who have cited the news as “definitely a win for safety”.

Consultation with all parts of the industry is vital is essential to ensure that installation quality and product safety is further improved. We’d like to think we’ve played a small part in this step forward, and will continue to lobby for all fire door installations and maintenance to be carried out by 3rd-party accredited, and therefore suitably trained and qualified, contractors.

Click below to read Si’s full letter.

As one of the leading fire door installation companies, Fire Door Experts are very proud to be involved in this project.

Renowned for the quality of our fire door installation work, we were engaged to carry out this complex project to supply and install the fire door-sets and bespoke ironmongery for BOSS Design in Clerkenwell.

Our team worked closely with the main contractor, AQ CSL, and the architect, Ed Yuen, to confirm designs, specifications and ironmongery. Even when coming late to the party, Fire Door Experts were able to deliver this project to budget and in time for the opening of the studio.

Ironmongery:

• Concealed hinges in brass from SOSS. These invisible hinges give a sleek, stylish finish to any door, with performance to match.
• PVD (physical vapour deposition) brass kick plates and full height push plates, with a high quality lacquered finish.  These had to be procured in Germany due to their 2.5m lengths.
• Brass handles were mounted onto the full height push plates
• 600mm brass pull handles were used to complete the design aesthetic
• Fire rated Perko door closers provide the required self-closing mechanism, but continue the sleek door design

Fire Doors

• The doors were procured from one of our fire door manufacturing partners, Humphrey and Stretton.
• To give a high quality finish, the doors were factory spray painted in RAL 9016
• Shadow trim detail was used in lieu of architraves

Fire Door Experts were called upon as leading fire door contractors to assist with a high end residential project last summer. The building had been handed over with non-fire rated riser doors!

FDE were tasked to come up with a solution to replace these riser doors with a bank of fire rated riser doors, across a very large aperture.

What made things even more complicated was the sizes and configurations of the new riser doors needed to be manufactured and installed exactly to suit the existing configuration of the electronic access panels, so that each door would open directly onto a panel.

Our Contracts Manager and Lead Fire Door Technician, Blaine Heard, decided to use risers with back-to-back frames.

Having spent time examining the riser cupboard, Blaine expertly designed the layout of the riser door configuration using Forza Doors back to back fire rated frame solutions.  As far as we are aware, Forza are the only fire door manufacturer able to offer this back to back frame design.

Following client approval, we successfully procured and installed these replacement riser doors configured in banks with back to back frames. This ensured full fire door compliance and the safety of the buildings residents and users.

Yet another first for the market leading team here at Fire Door Experts! Why not make us your go to fire door contractors?!

Another fix-only project in conjunction with SDS.

December saw the FDE team prove themselves as one of the leading fire door installation companies with our 5th project undertaken for SDS (Specialist Door Solutions) in 2020.

As preferred installers for SDS, Fire Door Experts were presented to the Main Contractors for an Essex hospital refurbishment.

Scope of Work

The project included the installation of 80 fire rated door-sets, which were a mix of FD30s and FD60s fire ratings and single, double and leaf and a half door configurations.

All doors feature wood veneer facings with blue door edge protection; ironmongery varied depending on the doors’ final intended use and location within the building.

Even when engaged on a fix-only basis, the FDE team check every detail on the door production schedule. Proposed door leaf sizes need to be confirmed, as do door swing actions and handings to ensure each door-set is correct to be installed with minimum fuss once on site and to allow the project to run as smoothly as possible.

Once work commenced, Fire Door Experts maintained a consistent onsite Project Leader, to offer all parties involved a single go-to point of contact to streamline all communications.

Progress of Work

Hospitals are busy buildings, and even when the wards are being refurbished, there are patients waiting for the beds! Team FDE worked with the Main Contractors to ensure the right part of each ward was handed over on time to receive the incoming patients.

Progress was reported back to the Main Contractor on a regular basis, with installation photographs of each door-set supplied via shared Dropbox folders per door-set.

Having handed over the first floor, which allows patients to occupy the wards and much needed beds, our team have now commenced work on the next phase of the project on ground floor.

If you’re unsure which of the many fire door installation companies to engage on your next project, why not give us a call and discuss? We’d be very happy to hear from you!

315 fire doors successfully maintained despite unforeseen challenges

Fire Door Experts have completed fire door maintenance work on 315 bedroom, communal and riser doors on behalf of a large student accommodation chain successfully maintaining  all doors back to their originally intended fire rating.

Under our BM Trada Q-Mark Fire Door Maintenance accreditation, we can carry out a number of Accepted Repair Techniques to make fire doors compliant, techniques such as;

1. 1. Easing and adjusting the door so it hangs correctly in the frame to ensure the perimeter margins are within tolerance.
   2. Adjusting the frame to reduce excessive gaps on the long edges of the door leaf, particularly when working on veneer finish door leaves.
   3. Increasing the height of the door by adding hardwood lipping to the bottom edge.
   4. Installing automatic drop-down seals to provide smoke control where uneven floors make tight fire door tolerances of 3mm difficult to achieve.
   5. Replacing worn hinges to ensure the free swing of doors.
   6. Adjusting, or replacing, overhead door closers to ensure the doors self-close correctly so ensuring the integrity of the fire compartment.

These are just some of the Accepted Repair Techniques used to rectify the 658 identified non-compliances and maintain these fire doors back to compliance.

Projects such as these are normally challenging enough as our team work their way through the building. This particular project was made even more challenging as students began returning ready for the start of a new term. While this doesn’t sound a particularly difficult obstacle to overcome, when we remember this was the height of the Covid restrictions, and these students were arriving from all over the world…

Following Construction Leadership Council Site Operating Procedures Guidelines, and our ever evolving site-specific Risk Assessment and Method Statement, our technicians were able to book appointments for each apartment to ensure these guidelines and our RAMS were observed. This allowed social distancing and all other Covid-19 requirements to be applied and honoured so the project could continue smoothly.

One key point that was highlighted from this project…

Student accommodation… 315 fire doors… 658 identified non-conformities… ZERO compliant fire doors in the property before we commenced work!!

Planned Preventative Maintenance is vital for any fire doors, but when you have a few hundred fire doors, with people sleeping in the property, it really should be top of the Responsible Person’s list. Please see details of our PPM initiative here >> Fire Door Experts 360^®

Watch how quickly fire can engulf a room!

The Home Office has introduced a new bill to improve fire safety in buildings

Building on action already taken to ensure tragedies like the Grenfell Tower never happen again, the new Fire Safety Bill amends the Fire Safety Order 2005. This clarifies that the responsible person or duty-holder for multi-occupied, residential buildings must ensure fire door maintenance is carried out regularly. This is to manage and reduce the risk of fire for entrance doors to individual flats that open into common parts of the building.

More details will emerge over the coming months, but the Fire Door Experts team welcome this new Bill as this is an area of building maintenance that is often overlooked. Fire doors often only appear on a responsible person’s radar when they become faulty – by that time, they’re endangering life, and probably have been for some time!

With such exacting tolerances, such as 3mm gaps around the leaf edges, front entrance doors need to be regularly maintained and fit for purpose. This may sound a strange comment to make – they also need to be a fire rated door-assembly in the first place!

When carrying out surveys or maintenance works, we’re often presented with doors missing vital elements such as intumescent strips and fire rated hinges. Unfortunately, it’s not just a simple job for our technicians to fit these parts to “upgrade” a door into a fire door; without these parts present, we have to assume it was never a factory tested fire door – or the intumescent strips would have been present!

Simple, regular maintenance visits by accredited fire door technicians can keep all fire doors at optimum performance levels, and providing effective passive fire protection.

BM Trada Q-Mark Certificate 001 – we really were 1st!

Whilst recently rearranging the office, we realised what we had in our possession – the very first BM Trada Q-Mark certificate for door installation!

As well as being No. 001, we’re also very proud to be BM Trada Q-Mark certified. Here at Fire Door Experts, we firmly believe the detail required through Trada’s fire door inspection and maintenance schemes leave no stone unturned, and leaves a building’s Responsible Person in no doubt that the fire door assemblies will provide effective passive fire protection.

A prime example being a ‘fire door’ with no intumescent strips present can’t have been a factory tested fire door under the Q-Mark scheme, otherwise it would have the strips installed – which makes perfect sense when you think about it. Other schemes would allow the door leaves to have the edges routed and intumescent strips retrospectively fitted, but you can’t make a door into a fire door just by adding some strips and an overhead closer.

BM Trada have 23 Accepted Repair Techniques, and allow Certified maintainers to use these ARTs to maintain fire doors back to their original intended purpose as fire rated door assemblies. Fire Door Experts can then issue a Record of Maintenance Activity once the work is completed, along witht an O&M folder with all required fire test evidence, giving the building’s Responsible Person an audit trail of what was fitted, using what technique, on which date and by whom. This is vital information when looking after passive fire protection equipment.

The same level of detail is behind the Q-Mark door installation scheme, providing our clients with the knowledge that factory tested door-sets are being installed to the highest standards. That’s our opinion anyway, why not engage with us on your next fire door project and see the difference?!