Managing and running a commercial property has never been easy. As a business owner, it is your responsibility to ensure that your premises are safe from fire. Nothing is more important than the safety of your visitors and employees of your building. This includes fire maintenance and prevention of fire safety equipment. Of all fire door solutions, fire safety doors are considered the most important part and play a vital role in keeping visitors and employees safe in the event of a fire breakout.
Moral and legal responsibility of business owners
When it comes to fire safety, the responsibilities of business owners are numerous. The implementation of the Regulatory Reform Order 2005 in the year 2006 has further increased the significance of fire doors being placed on the responsibility of building managers and owners in England and Wales. The order means that a person is assigned several legal responsibilities including a duty to ensure fire safety precautions, to mitigate the effects of fire if there is a fire breakout, and a responsibility to decrease the spread of smoke and fire on the premises. A vital aspect of these responsibilities is to make sure that appropriate and adequate fire door solutions are fitted and installed in the correct places.
For domestic use, FD30 is considered the best choice. Building regulations specify the places in which you can install thirty-minute fire doors on a residential premise. If you are not sure as to where fire doors have to be fitted, it is a good idea to check with a fire door company or an architect.
On the other hand, for commercial premises, a range of fire doors might be needed, from FD60 to FD30, and in some cases, up to FD120. Again, it is always a great idea to check with a fire door safety expert if you are not sure about the rating of fire doors you require in your building or premises. Incorrectly fitted or rated fire doors are a breach of fire safety regulations along with putting lives at risk in your premises.
What goes into a fire door?
Approved FD30 fire doors provide 30 minutes of integrity. In other words, in the event of a fire break out, they can provide resistance to fire for at least thirty minutes.
Additionally, timber-framed thirty-minute fire doors will have a 44mm certified core to either BS EN 1634-1:2014 or BS 476 Pt22:1987. The core is made of materials that are put to rigorous testing to make sure they will control the spread of smoke and fire. The main purpose of the core of a fire door is to resist the burn and fire at a rate that slows its spread. Such doors should have intumescent strips in the door or frame however not in case there is any glazing in the fire door.
What does a fire door do?
All fire door solutions must be installed by a renowned and reputed fire door expert who has years of experience in the same. As mentioned earlier, the purpose of a fire door is to slow the spread of fire and smoke by controlling the speed at which it can travel through different parts of the building. For instance, if 30-minute fire doors are fitted and a fire breaks out, the additional thirty minutes of integrity provided by FD30 will help in containment and evacuation of the fire while the emergency services team reaches the premises and evacuate occupants.