Flipping spec! Make sure your fire doors are safe from day one

Flipping spec! Make sure your fire doors are safe from day one

We hear a lot about neglect of fire doors – not regularly checked, not properly maintained, not kept shut.

These are valid and important points but all this happens after the project has been signed off and the construction team has gone home.

If you’re a contractor it’s equally important to remember that making fire doors safe starts at the planning stage with the fire strategy for the building and the specification of the doors. Fire doors that aren’t specified correctly can’t hope to be safe and won’t be signed off.

Specification covers a broad spectrum of factors. The door needs to be made of the right materials, with the right ironmongery in the right places – all of which needs to meet different standards. It needs to be the correct size relative to a range of requirements that can even include the brand of intumescent sealant.

And that, of course, is before you’ve even started on fulfilling the design brief.

If specification gives you brain freeze, our first top tip of Fire Door Safety Week can help.

Use suppliers that are 3rd-party certified.

This gives you the assurance that they have been independently audited. The most common schemes include QMark and Certifire (Dorplan offers both), and IFC.

3rd-party certification also means your supplier has demonstrated that they know how to construct compliant product so they can advise you on making your spec compliant.

Need some help? Give us a call. Our team of technical experts has detailed knowledge of the Building Regulations, certification schemes and the performance of all the products used in door manufacture.

You don’t have to be a customer, we’re happy to help anyone who needs advice if it means more safe fire doors out there.