Purpose made Fire Doors
Abacus Property Services recently concluded a contract in Plymouth to upgrade 65 existing Listed/Historic doors to FD30(S) Fire Door specification. The Building was part Residential and part Administrative. The Fire Risk Assessment flagged up the doors as needing to be upgraded under the current legislation. Most of the doors could be upgraded with a Fire proofing paint system which is dependent on the doors being in good sound condition, size and thickness of the Styles, bars and panels of the doors, plus the addition of proper fire door hinges, cold smoke intumescent heat seals and approved hydraulic closers. The existing locks and latches were fitted with intumescent protection. There were also a small number of doors that had warped due to the use of wedges. These were replaced with purpose made fire doors to the existing style, design and size as shown on the left.
Door Warping/Twisting
The action of a door being wedged with a hydraulic closer trying to close the door, especially in an older more damp building, will often result in the door warping or twisting and so not sitting in the door jam correctly, usually resulting in the need to be replaced. The operators of the building intended to change to approved hold back devices that were fixed to the door at the top of the door so that the tension created by the closer would be a straight pull and would not ‘twist’ the door.
Compartmentation
The general principle of compartmentation is to ensure that if there were to be a fire in a particular area, then the minimum time the fire is contained is generally governed by the rating of the door. There was also a small amount of compartmentation work that included blanking off a sash window in a corridor with fire line plasterboard and sealing a machinery room of wiring looms with intumescent collars and sealing plasterboard joints with intumescent mastic.