Fire Doors in Church and Heritage Buildings

The introduction of The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 re-emphasised the need for adequate fire safety measures in older buildings and those of special interest.

Already, there was a significant level of awareness that standards of fire compartmentation in Heritage buildings may not be adequate for many varied reasons. Indeed with particular regard to fire doors, English Heritage produced the 1997 guide ‘Timber panelled doors and fire’.

This detailed and practical document addresses the issue of fire separation performance of existing doors whilst recognising the important need to achieve improved levels of performance in accordance with the principles of minimum intervention and reversibility.

Those principles remain and the document although eighteen years old is still used today as an excellent resource but things have moved on since 1997. The fire door industry has invested heavily and achieved improvements in product performance so that where upgrading works are required access to dedicated high performance products is widely available.

Back in 1997 of-course access to competent and suitable contractors to carry out upgrading works was very limited. Since the introduction of the Fire Door Inspection Scheme (FDIS) in 2012 this situation has improved markedly and building owners and operators have access to certificated fire door inspectors ( CertFDI )that possess the specialist knowledge to inspect fire doors, advise on upgrading methods and manage remedial works.

So today, the Responsible Person managing fire safety in Church and Heritage buildings is much better placed to access competent professionals that can ensure the suitability and compliance of upgrading works to fire doors. This in-turn makes improvements in passive fire safety not only possible but of a higher performance standard that ever.

Further information can be found on the website www.fdis.co.uk