Fire safety doors

[Safetysmurf]

A quick question.
Does a fire safety door (fire and smoke proof for 30 minutes) have to have a fds30 sticker on the top of the door to prove the door is what it says it is? I know this can also be achieved by stamping and a plug in the door.
Can anyone help please?

[bernicarey]

To 'prove' it is a 'fire door' it has to have some sort of evidence, which would be a plate/label, or on older doors the coloured plug in the side; but that doesn't help if its poorly fitted, fitted into an inappropriate frame, etc.

[Messy]

No, absolutely not - a fire door does not need to be marked to be accepted as a suitable door used as part of the building compartmentation.

Its a perennial problem faced by those daft enough to be employed conducting fire safety work. Is this a fire door or not? It has a fire door sticker so surely it is? The truth is, the vast majority have no indication at all

There are a number of voluntarily door marking schemes (including those you have mentioned), but doors are often as old as the building so the vast majority would be pre marking scheme

Identifying fire doors is a competency that needs to be learned. I have a good idea if a door is suitable by looking for tell tale signs and clues, but cannot be 100% certain on 100% of occasions. We had a chippy attend a fire door course and I often call him in to assist me.

A Google search will provide details of the key recognising features of fire door (thickness, hinges, seals etc)

Good luck

[Safetysmurf]

Thanks for the answers guys.
The doors are new doors being hung in a care home so in answer to my question, I'll chase up the manufacturer to provide evidence of the fds30. My next question is, does the door which has been certified have to be put on a register saying where each individual door is? This to me seems pointless as long as the door is a fire door?

Safeysmurf

[witsd]

My next question is, does the door which has been certified have to be put on a register saying where each individual door is? This to me seems pointless as long as the door is a fire door?

Safeysmurf

Whilst it's not a bad idea to have a list of fire doors so that you can easily arrange for anyone (who knows what to look for) to check for damage on a routine basis, I'm not aware of any requirement to do this.

[bernicarey]

Whist it might look from my previous reply, and that from Messy, that we disagree, we actually don't. I was just being brief as it was late and I used the quotes to answer the question.

To 'prove' it is a 'fire door' it has to have some sort of evidence

I stand by that statement. I can best guess the quality of a door, but to 'Prove' anything I need an audit trail of some sort.

If there is no audit trail then there can never be proof, whatever the subject of the inquiry.
Whether it be 'is it a fire door or not' or 'is this a genuine manufacturer's component or not' It doesn't matter it you're talking fire doors or car parts. plenty of people fit 'factor' parts to their cars, rather than manufacturer originals. Most of which do a fine job.
For example, if you're replacing Brake pads on a car, you could go buy OEM parts from the Main Dealer (potentially hurting your wallet), you could buy reputable recognised alternative parts from a independent supplier (not so bad a price), or you could buy ones from a dubious source (potentially very cheap) made with asbestos and other unknown materials that Trading Standards would like to hear about, which don't work very well and wear out fast!

Messy is quite right that there are many older Fire Doors that are not marked, but then they were the standard of the day, to the Building Regs of the time, so they are what they are.

I find the biggest problem with older doors is that people think 'I've got a marked Fire Door so I'm OK' yet it is so poorly fitted it might as well not be there. In terms of older doors, I think whether they are a 'fire door' or not is a bit of a mute point. It's more a case of is it a good fitting door of reasonable strength and weight. Older Fire Doors didn't have any form of seal, so no matter how solid they were, smoke and heat would get around them.

Still, we now know that's not the basis of your question, because you're talking about new doors, and actually I'm now a little confused.

There are so many applicable design standards for Fire Safety, such as BS476, BS9999 etc, I'd have thought that reputable manufacturers these days are going to mark their doors just to show they are to a suitable Spec.
They are at a commercial/marketing disadvantage if they don't, to say the very least! Why would anyone buy a new Fire Door that wasn't identified?

The doors are new doors being hung in a care home

So 2 things now come to mind.
Are the new doors you're having installed not from a reputable source? (see option 3 on the car parts scenario above)

Are they having new frames, or are they going to be nice new fire doors hung in the old frames? Because if they are... are they going to be of any use?

As to your question of a 'Register'.

The RRFSO s 17 requires you to have suitable maintenance of facilities. Whether that means you need to have a register of Fire Doors is up to you, and probably depends on your circumstances, but I would suggest it could be excessive.
Many buildings have a door/room numbers, for a variety of reasons, which may or may not include keeping track of any specific maintenance.

[HelenPJ]

If it's a Fire Door (and it's to be mounted in compliant setting) then Construction Products Regulation & the relevant list of Harmonised standards would be a good place to go

Construction Products Regulation page in Europa - links to the original Regulation & list of harmonised standards here:
http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-marke ... dex_en.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


This appears to be relevant:

EN 16034:2014
Pedestrian doorsets, industrial, commercial, garage doors and openable windows — Product standard, performance characteristics — Fire resisting and/or smoke control characteristics

For most Construction Products I would expect a Notified Body Certificate of Compliance to be available, listing the principle characteristics of the door(s) and mountings, and the Manufacturer would ideally have an EC Declaration of Performance as well...

HTH a little