Fire Door Surveys
FIRE DOOR SURVEYS
Regular fire door inspections are a legal requirement under the fire safety order. They should be carried out on a minimum 6 monthly basis according to BS 9999.
The person carrying out the inspection should be ‘competent’ and may hold third party accreditation, however this is not a legal requirement only a recommendation. There are several schemes running which include FIRAS, BRE and UKAS, in addition there are a few others, but we wouldn't support a number of these, as we have found that they lack high levels of knowledge and their requirements seem to be just a money making scheme.
All our assessors at Active Fire Safety carry the fire door inspection scheme diploma (FDIS Dip), which underpins their knowledge together with extensive practical training. In addition a a number have served with the British Fire Service so can also appreciate and understand the vital role fire doors have to play in protecting means of escape routes from a building and also how they help provide sound fire compartments in a building thus reducing the spread of fire and smoke.
Like all third party schemes, it doesn't necessarily mean their registered inspectors are competent as we have found with other third party organisations offering similar services.
Unfortunately in our opinion the HM Government supports this approach as with trade organisations, but our personal experience is that these schemes only seem to benefit the organisation concerned. This is something that when you are looking for 'competent' persons you need to do your homework and certainly ask for references, or talk to previous customer to gauge the standard of service they have received.
At Active Fire Safety Solutions we use our years of experience and technical knowledge to offer an internal third party service, that constantly monitors our assessors. This is an insurance backed scheme and every assessor undergoes stringent training, both technically and vocationally, before we accept them as ‘competent’. They are also required to carry our continuous profession development (CPD) to keep up with the latest technical and practical developments.
During any inspections, we determined if the fire doors within your premises are ‘suitable and sufficient’, if they require any maintenance to ensure they are working correctly, or whether in fact, they meet current fire and smoke stopping standards and we will advise if its possible to maintain the doors or whether there is a need for replacement bearing in mind risk being proportionate to cost.
We ensure every fire door we inspect undergoes, as a minimum at the following checks:
- Suitability of seals
- Intumescent hinge pad behind all hinge plates
- Is the correct signage present
- Correctly fitted fire-certified door furniture
- Does the door close fully onto its rebates?
- If glazing is present is it correctly and securely installed
- Has the door any identifying certification marks or labels
- If a double set, do the doors close together without any twisting at the base or head
- Is the fire rating correct for the doors location
- Assessment of the gaps between the door and frame
- Are hold open devices fitted and if so operate correctly.
- Is there damage to the door leaf itself.
This is not an exhaustive list and there are more elements to consider, but if your assessor is ‘competent’ and qualified, not only will they give you best advice, but the more experienced assessors will also advise you on which doors in your premises actually need to be fire doors and which do not, rather than assessing all of your doors. This can only be done by a person who knows the building’s fire strategy, emergency evacuation plan and who has seen your fire risk assessment.
All fire door inspections should be documented and easily referenced by the fire services or your fire risk assessor if the need arises.
At Active Fire Safety Solutions we pride ourselves on many years experience carrying out fire door inspections, providing quotes for the products and giving contact details of independent installation teams. All doors carry a manufacturers guarantee and are certified to BS 476 Pt 22.