Hi, does anyone know about current building regs as far as replacing
existing doors in a top floor flat?

I have hung many 35mm internal doors in houses and am doing a job for a
friend, replacing 5 internal doors and one "front" door to the flat.
When i say front door, it is inside and is between the shared stairwell
and the flat hallway.

All the doors are the same 6'6" x 2'6" x 1" 3/4 (44mm). Am I right in
thinking that they are firedoors? how do i tell as they are all
painted, i think they are because they are thicker than normal and
there seems to be a self closing device in the middle of the hinge
stile which has been disconnected.

The front door is the same as all the others and from my research so
far i think that regs say that this has to be a fire door rated to 30
mins.

The other five doors all lead off the flats hallway to the various
rooms. Do these need to be replaced with firedoors as well?.

Thanks in advance

On 21 Nov 2006 07:08:45 -0800 Paul Martin wrote :
Hi, does anyone know about current building regs as far as replacing
existing doors in a top floor flat?

I have hung many 35mm internal doors in houses and am doing a job for
a friend, replacing 5 internal doors and one "front" door to the flat.
When i say front door, it is inside and is between the shared
stairwell and the flat hallway.

All the doors are the same 6'6" x 2'6" x 1" 3/4 (44mm). Am I right in
thinking that they are firedoors? how do i tell as they are all
painted, i think they are because they are thicker than normal and
there seems to be a self closing device in the middle of the hinge
stile which has been disconnected.

If it's three or more storeys they should be fire doors. And self
closing too, though what you have is not untypical. The intention is
that if there is fire within your flat (TV catches fire, carelessly
discarded cigarette in lounge) the internal doors protect your route of
escape from bedrooms to the flat entrance door, and this door protects
the stairwell and common parts.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

Tony Bryer wrote:

If it's three or more storeys they should be fire doors. And self
closing too, though what you have is not untypical. The intention is
that if there is fire within your flat (TV catches fire, carelessly
discarded cigarette in lounge) the internal doors protect your route of
escape from bedrooms to the flat entrance door, and this door protects
the stairwell and common parts.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk


I didn't think they all had to be firedoors and that the fact there is
an outside (fire) door to the stairwell means the requirements aren't
so strict as if the flat front door opened straight onto the stairs but
I can't back any of that up.

Tony Bryer wrote:

On 21 Nov 2006 07:08:45 -0800 Paul Martin wrote :
Hi, does anyone know about current building regs as far as replacing
existing doors in a top floor flat?

I have hung many 35mm internal doors in houses and am doing a job for
a friend, replacing 5 internal doors and one "front" door to the flat.
When i say front door, it is inside and is between the shared
stairwell and the flat hallway.

All the doors are the same 6'6" x 2'6" x 1" 3/4 (44mm). Am I right in
thinking that they are firedoors? how do i tell as they are all
painted, i think they are because they are thicker than normal and
there seems to be a self closing device in the middle of the hinge
stile which has been disconnected.

If it's three or more storeys they should be fire doors. And self
closing too, though what you have is not untypical. The intention is
that if there is fire within your flat (TV catches fire, carelessly
discarded cigarette in lounge) the internal doors protect your route of
escape from bedrooms to the flat entrance door, and this door protects
the stairwell and common parts.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

Thanks for your reply, when you say three storeys, the building in
question has ground floor then first then second, is this classed as
the third storey or the second floor?

On 21 Nov 2006 08:34:04 -0800 Paul Martin wrote :
Thanks for your reply, when you say three storeys, the building in
question has ground floor then first then second, is this classed as
the third storey or the second floor?

That's a three storey building. A caveat to my previous post is that
what I posted is the general rule and something different may have
been agreed in a particular case. But the thickness of the doors and
the (disconnected) closers makes it sound like fire doors and (almost)
no one installs these voluntarily.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

Tony Bryer wrote:

On 21 Nov 2006 08:34:04 -0800 Paul Martin wrote :
Thanks for your reply, when you say three storeys, the building in
question has ground floor then first then second, is this classed as
the third storey or the second floor?

That's a three storey building. A caveat to my previous post is that
what I posted is the general rule and something different may have
been agreed in a particular case. But the thickness of the doors and
the (disconnected) closers makes it sound like fire doors and (almost)
no one installs these voluntarily.

Thanks Tony, what you are saying makes sense. You wouldn't install fire
doors given the choice, the cost and extra work involved is
prohibitive.
However I think that when the original conversion took place building
control played a significant part and renovating (only changing doors)
an existing property calls for less strict regulations than a new
build/conversion.

The front door onto the stairwell I am conviced should be a firedoor
but the internals i think could be replaced with normal 35mm solid wood
door, bit of a pain changing the stops but much cheaper for the
customer which is a significant factor.


--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

Paul Martin wrote:

The front door onto the stairwell I am conviced should be a firedoor
but the internals i think could be replaced with normal 35mm solid wood
door, bit of a pain changing the stops but much cheaper for the
customer which is a significant factor.

If the front door opens direct onto the stairwell (ie there is not a
door between the front door and the stairs) then there must be a
'protected lobby' inside the flat. Which in effect means there must be
another fire-door between the front door and and any habitable room
(bathrooms and WCs are not habitable rooms).

--
djc

djc wrote:
Paul Martin wrote:

The front door onto the stairwell I am conviced should be a firedoor
but the internals i think could be replaced with normal 35mm solid wood
door, bit of a pain changing the stops but much cheaper for the
customer which is a significant factor.

If the front door opens direct onto the stairwell (ie there is not a
door between the front door and the stairs) then there must be a
'protected lobby' inside the flat. Which in effect means there must be
another fire-door between the front door and and any habitable room
(bathrooms and WCs are not habitable rooms).

--
djc

There may also be requirements for fire seals and the type of fire door
and it's probably best to speak to building control or your landlord.
It could be that the front door needs to be a higher rated fire door
than the others, or rather the others need to be a lesser rating than
the front.

On 21 Nov 2006 07:08:45 -0800, a particular chimpanzee named "Paul
Martin" randomly hit the keyboard and
produced:

Hi, does anyone know about current building regs as far as replacing
existing doors in a top floor flat?

I have hung many 35mm internal doors in houses and am doing a job for a
friend, replacing 5 internal doors and one "front" door to the flat.
When i say front door, it is inside and is between the shared stairwell
and the flat hallway.

All the doors are the same 6'6" x 2'6" x 1" 3/4 (44mm). Am I right in
thinking that they are firedoors? how do i tell as they are all
painted, i think they are because they are thicker than normal and
there seems to be a self closing device in the middle of the hinge
stile which has been disconnected.

The front door is the same as all the others and from my research so
far i think that regs say that this has to be a fire door rated to 30
mins.

The other five doors all lead off the flats hallway to the various
rooms. Do these need to be replaced with firedoors as well?.

In a properly converted building complying with the requirements of
the Building Regulations, the internal hall of the flat should be 30
minutes fire resisting with FD20 doors unless the furthest point in
the flat from the flat entrance door is 9m or less.

There must be a fire resisting lobby between the flat entrances and
the common stair. If there are two or one flats per storey this lobby
can be formed by the protected internal lobby (with FD20 doors). This
sounds like the situation you describe.

In a non-compliant building, when replacing doors they must be no
worse than before the work was carried out (it would be assumed that
the doors had self-closers when they were installed so you would need
to reinstate these).

As this is a fire safety issue, a Building Regulations application is
required.
--
Hugo Nebula
"If no-one on the internet wants a piece of this,
just how far from the pack have you strayed?"