Fire Door Safety Week 31st October to 4th November 2022
75% of Fire Doors Failed FDIS 2021 Inspections
The Fire Door Inspection Scheme (FDIS) recently surveyed its approved inspectors and found that 75,000 of the 100,000 fire doors inspected failed to comply with standards.
Excessive gaps and issues around smoke sealing were some of the main reasons for the failures, putting occupants’ lives at risk.
The quality of the installation was also a key issue, with 31% of the doors that failed caused by poor fitting.
Although this report is a slight improvement on the 2019 survey which found a 76% door failure, it’s still a long way away from where it needs to be. That particular report also raised the problem of non-compatible foam being used for installation. With so many fire foams on the market, selecting the right one that will perform specifically around fire doors could potentially be a real headache for installers.
Julian Vollans, Managing Director comments “Sealing the gap correctly around a fire door frame is fundamental in ensuring the fire door will perform in the event of a fire.
Some of the products on the market can be misleading in their test data, so we wanted to counteract this by creating products that would give installers peace of mind when they’re fitting fire doors.
We achieved this by developing Fire Door FoamTM which replaces the need for using time-consuming traditional methods like mineral fibre wool. Our foam has been specifically tested for 30 to 120 minutes in timber fire door assemblies by the guidance in BS476: Parts 20&22:1987 – which are the British Standards for fire doors.
We’ve also created an intumescent mastic sealant which has been through the same rigorous tests and can be used when gaps are below 5mm, or for capping the foam when installing FD90 or FD120 doors.
Both products have been independently tested to achieve Certifire certification which is further testament to their performance credentials.”
For advice and support contact our team at 0121 521 2179.
For installation advice view our YouTube videos here.
For more information about the latest FDIS survey visit https://fdis.co.uk/2022/07/04/warning-as-three-quarters-of-fire-doors-fail-inspections/