Broadback wrote:
Brian G wrote:
Huge wrote:
On 2007-11-17, Brian G wrote:
Huge wrote:
On 2007-11-16, The Medway Handyman
wrote:
Been asked by a BTL landlord to do some work to bring a small
terraced house up to standard.

BCO have specified that the existing door leading to the kitchen
should be fitted with intumescent seals and cold smoke seals.

She assures me that the existing door is a fire door, but I'm
getting alarm bells ringing.

Two reasons; I thought all fire doors should already be fitted
with intumescent seals as standard? And the door doesn't have a
self closer of any sort. I thought that should be standard as
well?
The door to my integral garage is half-hour fireproof. It has
neither intumescent seals or a self closer.
Huge,

Not half-hour fireproof but half-hour fire check - the door and
frame will succumb to the high temperatures of a fire eventually.
Don't tell me, let me guess? After ... half an hour! Right? )

Nah! You can get one hour fire check doors too!!

And if you have enough cash to spend, you can get doors that
withstand over 10,000 degrees of heat for a while - but a thermic
lance will give 'em a run for their money mind! :-)

As a matter of interest, if the doors are installed in public
buildings,
Does a BTL count as a public building?

BTL, I suppose that means Bought To Let? If that's the case then no
- unless you convert the property into flats, then any doors
accessing a corridor or stairway that's a designated 'fire escape'
must have them - and be self closing. There may also be a case
whereby certain rooms inside the flat may have to have a fire check
door fitted. Ah, there are exceptions in a private dwelling - the access
to a loft
conversion must have a fire check door and also a door with direct
access from a connected garage into the main property (as in your
case).
then they have to have the intumescent strips, smoke seals and be
self-closing along all fire escape routes such as corridors and
stair access - as do flats. Private dwellings are different.

Pedantic I know but... :-)
Astonishingly, my house is indeed a private dwelling.

Well I never, I wouldn't have though that from your original post! :-)
All the best Huge

Brian G


Years ago, when in the RAF I attended a lecture on fire and
precautions. Like, I suspect, many people I thought metal doors
would be more fire resistant than wooden, not so. We were showed
films of rooms in which fierce fires had been lit. The fires "jumped"
to the adjacent rooms far quicker when steel doors were used.

It's the same with lintels and floor joists. In intense heat, a metal
lintel or joist will bend, warp and collapse quite quickly, whereas wooden
ones will burn on the outside but retain their strength for quite a long
period - and that's one of the reasons you will often see structural steel
surrounded with reinforced concrete.