Flat entrance doors

[Paul1979]

A good old residential fire safety query for you all...

Purpose built block of flats - dated 1980s.

Each flat has a FD30 with Perko / chain self-closer.

No fire strips or smoke seals on some, but others (where residents have taken it upon themselves) have.

Question is, should ALL the flat entrance doors now have fire and smoke seals retrospectively fitted as mandatory, or just best practice??

And, I think I read somewhere that the adaptations to the FSO are being pushed through at the moment to make the Landlords responsible for maintenance / upkeep of flat entrance doors which open on to a common stairway - so, if the flats are owner occupied, does the owner of the common parts then have to make sure the flat entrance doors are maintained?

You guys have probably seen this before, but we are stuck in the middle between the residents and the owner of the common parts as to who should be looking after the doors!

As always, any help / steer much appreciated.

[Paul1979]

Hi - sorry, I should have added, the evacuation policy is 'stay put' if that makes any difference on peoples opinions...

Look forward to hearing from you.

[witsd]

Nothing is retrospective, so changes to any guidance have no real bearing on anyone.

However

The moment a new FRA is completed (which should arguably be soon as there's been a significant change to the guidance), that FRA is going to push for singing and dancing FD60Ss.

For the second question about landlord responsibilities, I don't think that's the 'spirit of the law' – my belief is that that was only referring to common doors, not flat entrance doors. To be honest, I hadn't even considered previously if flat doors could be covered by that, and (although most of our flats open into lobbies rather than stairwells) it would be an utter hellscape if that were the case.

Edit:

As a general note, and assuming you are dealing with owner-occupiers here, what do the deeds say? I've heard of doors remaining partially owned by the building owner in order to prevent UPVCs being fitted etc., though in most cases, they are frustratingly not mentioned at all.

[Paul1979]

Hello witsd, thank you as always for such as comprehensive answer.

My colleague and I have been reading through the deeds and tenancy agreements - amazingly (or not) absolutely no mention of who is responsible for the fire doors entering the flats from the common stair!! It is as if it is 'no mans land'...

I have seen arguments such as this settled before where Building Owner and Flat Owner take 50% liability each when it came to retrospectively fitting strips / seals to the doors, but this was in a commercial building.

BUT, we are a little frightened to say the least by what you say about having a new FRA completed and the fact they will ask for FD60S's...why / how can they insist upon that when all the current doors are FD30/FD30Ss which were fine when first installed back in 1980's? Is this something that will apply to all new builds from now on too?

The joys of residential fire safety...again, thank you so much for your time in answering.

[witsd]

An FRA has no requirement to adhere to the guidance or the 'no retroactive fixes required' clause - the whole point of an FRA is to assess the level of risk to life and see whether that risk level necessitates the cost of the potential 'fix'. Guidance is just guidance for the assessor as to how that fix might look.

If the assessor happens to knock on Dorris' door, and sees her smoking whilst pulling an oxygen cart along, their report may very well demand measures that are above-and-beyond the guidance.

So you might be lucky and get a reasonable assessor who samples some doors* and says "These doors seem solid enough, 30 minutes is less than the current guidance, but there are no significant fire risks beyond the everyday, so just get strips, seals and self-closers fitted and happy days".

Or, you might get the jobsworth type who state that you should be aiming to match the current standards no matter what. I'd like to hope that there are more of the former, but unless you know your assessors well, it's a gamble.

*Note that personally, we aren't sampling flat doors at the moment due to C19. Double check what your assessor's intentions are here before commissioning!

Edit:

I may be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that the Domestic Technical Handbook in Scotland (and presumably Approved Doc B down south) is now saying that FD60S is the minimum in high rises. I haven't needed to check that for a while though, so don't quote me!

[hammer1]

A good old residential fire safety query for you all...

Purpose built block of flats - dated 1980s.

Each flat has a FD30 with Perko / chain self-closer.

No fire strips or smoke seals on some, but others (where residents have taken it upon themselves) have.

Question is, should ALL the flat entrance doors now have fire and smoke seals retrospectively fitted as mandatory, or just best practice??

And, I think I read somewhere that the adaptations to the FSO are being pushed through at the moment to make the Landlords responsible for maintenance / upkeep of flat entrance doors which open on to a common stairway - so, if the flats are owner occupied, does the owner of the common parts then have to make sure the flat entrance doors are maintained?

You guys have probably seen this before, but we are stuck in the middle between the residents and the owner of the common parts as to who should be looking after the doors!

As always, any help / steer much appreciated.

Are they single perko chain closers? If so there is an issue as they are no longer acceptable due to lack of reliability for door into latch. ACOP hardware fire doors and escapes provide some background and is free to download.

The question is, would you deem these doors as 'notional' fire doors, they were acceptable at time of installation to e fire rated doors. Also if the evacuation strategy is simultaneous, minimal smoke leakage would active communal AFD and alert all residents in block?

There no retrospective requirement to upgrade fire doors, you should have 25mm rebate in place? condition of door would need to be considered, timber/thickness etc