Fire Doors
Fire doors are vital for safety and demand expert installation and maintenance. ClearView, an accredited specialist, certified by the IFC, providing cost-effective, reliable fire door services.
an overview
What is the role of fire doors?
Fire doors serve as an essential element of a building’s passive fire protection system, designed to minimise the spread of fire through compartmentation. Constructed with fire-resistant materials, they effectively prevent fire and smoke from spreading.
Components like frames, glass, and ironmongery such as door closers and hinges must undergo certified fire resistance testing from third-party accredited organisations.
Fire doors ultimately provide a barrier against fire and smoke for a designated period, allowing occupants to safely evacuate during a fire.
Fire compartmentation is an essential component of passive fire protection. It involves reinstating fire compartmentation or barriers that have been penetrated to prevent the spread of fire and smoke, keeping them within designated zones.
This helps to prevent smoke-logged escape routes and enables safe evacuation. Fire compartmentation is achieved by dividing a building into fire compartments using fire doors, floors, walls, cavity barriers, and fire stopping.
trusted service providers to
Are Your Doors Compliant?
ClearView offers a professional fire door survey, carried out by our fully certified Fire Door engineers who will inspect your fire rated doors and complete a detailed report for your premises. Fire Risk Assessments and providing training to staff and visitors are a legal requirement for all blocks of flats and for any premises which employ more than five persons. The Risk Assessment must be carried out by a competent person and provide an efficient recording system such as Boris to ensure fire resisting doors are regularly checked and compliant. See more on ClearView Fire Risk Assessments.
We also carry out fire door maintenance, surveys and remedial repair work to ensure that your fire doors will perform as designed in the event of a fire. Moreover, we ensure that your building(s) fire doorsets meet the statutory requirements of fire doors for legal compliance.
We have the qualifications and certification to undertake full onsite existing doorset inspections that include ironmongery and vision panels, to ensure compliance with all current legislation.
Use our FREE Fire Door Inspection checklist to make sure your fire doors are fit for purpose today.
Download our FREE fire door checklistFire Door Products
We can deliver a range of different compliant and cost-effective products that protect and prolong the door whilst reducing maintenance costs. All our products are designed and tested to remain fully functional after impact and prolonged abrasion.
Our products include:
- Composite fire doors
- Timber fire doors
- Metal fire doors
- Fire rated glazing
- Fire door fittings
Fire Door Ratings
Fire ratings refer to the duration in which a fireproof door can remain fully functional in a fire resistance test. ClearView works with leading fire door manufacturers, supplying fire rated products.
Our range includes FD30 fire doors where a product can withstand a fire for 30 minutes and FD60 fire doors (60 minutes). Although these are the most commonly specified integrity levels, we can provide increased fire rated products up to FD120, to suit the required environment.
Read the Fire Door Regulations for the UKFire-rated glass is designed to provide a dependable degree of protection by preventing smoke and flames from spreading within a building. Essentially, it forms part of the building’s fire compartmentation.
Fire-rated glass also offers protection from fire heat and may play a crucial role in the premises’ fire safety strategy. To comply with UK Building Regulations Approved Document B, the fire resistance levels of the glass must have been tested and proven.
Fire safety involves design, infrastructure, and planning mitigation to reduce the risk of fire that could result in death, injury or property damage.
Fire-resistant building materials are used in the construction of new buildings and must also be implemented in existing buildings when non-compliant.
Fire doors are essential components of a building’s fire strategy because they provide compartmentation that prevents the spread of fire and smoke to other areas. Fire door safety features are designed to save lives and protect property by containing fire and smoke according to a set timeframe.
Fire doors also offer protection for escape routes, giving occupants time to leave the building safely in the event of a fire.
A fire safety plan should provide all the information and procedures required to be followed in the event of a fire. The plan should include emergency routes, types of fire extinguishers, alarm activation procedures, and safe reporting areas. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 – Fire Safety Arrangements states, “The responsible person must make and give effect to such arrangements as are appropriate, having regard to the size of his undertaking and the nature of its activities, for the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of the preventive and protective measures.”
According to UK law regarding emergency routes and exits, “emergency doors must not be so locked or fastened that they cannot be easily and immediately opened by any person who may require using them in an emergency.”
However, in some cases, doors are locked for security purposes when the building is not in use; when the building is in use, fire doors should not be locked.
In several cases, door closers are required by law for fire doors according to the Fire Safety: Approved Document B.
Examples where door closers may be required include flats, residential care homes, and commercial premises; however, most houses will not require door closers to be compliant with the law.
Panic bars are often fitted on fire exits as a requirement of BS EN 1125:2008, and they are used to facilitate easy opening when needed. However, they are designed to be locked from the outside and kept closed for security purposes.
Panic bars are used for doors that open outwards and are effective when high volumes of personnel require quick egress in the event of an emergency.
Fire-resistant doors and fire door assemblies (frames) are made from materials that have been fire-rated to ensure they can withstand fire and smoke for a set period. Fire doors are typically manufactured using a variety of materials, including glass, steel, wood, or aluminium.
The materials will differ depending on the style of the door and the FD rating, which indicates the protection time from fire in minutes.
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