Managing Fire Doors in Residential Buildings

Property managers are responsible for ensuring that fire doors are checked and maintained. Sinead Campbell from Flat Living Insurance outlines exactly what is required for compliance, safety and peace of mind.

Fire doors are a crucial part of your building’s compartmentation. When well-maintained, they seal off rooms completely, keeping smoke and fire contained for as long as possible to allow residents to escape and emergency services to arrive.

Why Are Fire Doors So Important?

Fire doors are a part of your building’s “passive” fire protection system, helping to keep fire and smoke contained wherever it starts. On average, they will maintain their seal for 30 minutes if kept in great condition.

Well-maintained fire doors buy life-saving time and protect the rest of the building. Escape routes stay useable, fire fighters have a chance to arrive and get to work, and damage is as limited as possible. They are required for any doorway that leads to an escape route, and for any room that is deemed “high risk” such as kitchens and utility rooms.

The Legalities

There are 3 sets of regulations that outline the requirements for fire door safety:

• The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005
• The Fire Safety Act 2021
• Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022

In 2005, the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order made it a legal requirement for each building (all buildings and structures other than private homes) to appoint a “Responsible Person”.

This person became the lead on all things fire-safety related, including maintaining fire doors within the property. They were tasked with ensuring that a schedule of maintenance was created and consistently implemented with a full audit trail.

In 2021, the Fire Safety Act came into play. The Act provided some welcome clarification around which areas of the building the Order applied to. It became clear that the structure, external walls, cladding, balconies and flat entrance doors fell under the Responsible Person’s remit, alongside the communal areas.

2022’s Fire Safety (England) Regulations further clarified the requirements of the law by outlining exactly what was necessary in different types of building regarding communicating with residents.

Resident Education

A huge part of building safety comes down to the education and buy-in of the residents. They are the eyes and ears of the building and will ultimately be the ones expected to follow protocol to ensure everyone’s safety in the event of a fire.

The Regulations released in 2022 made things clear:

• Residential buildings with more than 2 dwellings and with common areas:

Responsible persons must provide education to residents around fire door safety and importance.

• Residential buildings over 11 meters and under 18 meters:

Information should be provided as above, and Responsible persons must undertake fire door inspections – quarterly for communal doors and annually for flat entrance doors.

• Residential buildings of 18 meters or 7 storeys in height:

As above, with the addition of a “secure information box” that must contain the structural plans for the building, wayfinding signage which must include floor numbers, a more in-depth series of checks and inspections of fire-related equipment, and full awareness of the building’s wall and cladding materials.

Conducting Fire Door Checks

The checks required do not have to be carried out by a specialist, although this is advisable as they will know exactly what to look for, ensuring your compliance with the law.

When checking a fire door yourself, you should be looking for:

• Certification of the door: There should be a label on the door to state that it is an approved fire door with a certification number.
• Door closure: make sure the door fully closes via a self-closing device no matter how widely it is opened.
• Door closer: This should be firmly attached and adjusted to close the door quickly but without slamming.
• Gaps: Any sizeable gaps between the door “leaf” and the frame will allow smoke to escape – there should be no gaps wider than 4mm around the edges, and no more than 10mm between the door and the floor.
• Frames and seals: The doorframe should be firmly attached to the wall and the intumescent seals around the door should be free from damage.
• Hinges: Fire doors should have at least 3 hinges, all firmly and correctly affixed.
• General check for damage: Make sure there are no cracks or bows in the wood and that any glass is intact.
• If you have any legal “hold-open” devices in place, these should be tested weekly to make sure they release as intended when the fire alarm sounds.

These checks are largely based on common-sense, but if you are in any doubt, or if you have inherited a building with no record of a professional assessment, bringing in the experts is advisable.

You can head over to our partners, 4site Consulting on Block in a Box to find a suitable Fire Risk Assessor who can also complete you quarterly and annual checks for you for complete peace of mind.