If you own or manage a building then it’s essential that you follow the necessary health and safety regulations to protect your building and its occupants, whilst meeting with the current fire safety legislation.
If you need to find out more about the current legislation, you can visit the government’s Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 information, which can be found on their website. The regulations detail the need for proper fire doors to be installed in public buildings and places of work.
Ensuring the correct preparation
All buildings must have a comprehensive fire safety plan informed by extensive risk assessment, which at Fire Doors Rite we can help you meet in regards to any Fire Door Requirements. This risk assessment will let you know what improvements need to be made to your building and ensure that all occupants know the fire safety policy.
Fire Safety Equipment
By law, all buildings need to incorporate adequate active fire safety protection equipment, such as the correct fire extinguishers and fire blankets. This equipment must also be regularly maintained to ensure that is it in proper working order at all times. Fire and smoke alarms are also required in areas which have been identified by the risk assessment and in line with current regulations.
Fire Doors
One of the most important pieces of ‘fire safety equipment’ within the building is the fire door, but as many see the fire door as a ‘fitting’ it is often overlooked and neglected by the buildings owner or manager – in doing so they are leaving the spread of fire to chance and therefore also the lives of those contained in the building, were a fire to break out.
Fire doors fitted must meet stringent standards and be specifically designed for the building and requirements identified either in the planning stage or by the Fire Risk Assessment. However, the problem that is seen in many buildings, is that the fire doors are left open or worst still, propped open – If a fire door is left open then it sole purpose is completely compromised and it will not protect the property or public areas that it is meant to do from fire.
When it comes to fire protection there is nothing as good as a fire door in terms of fire protection, so in comparison with getting your fire doors right when installation takes place and the cost associated with this, it is only a small price to pay if the building does have the misfortune to catch fire. So it is not hard to see why an investment in the correct fire doors now is the right choice to make.
How do fire doors work?
A fire door works by sectioning the building into compartments which prevents the spread of fire if it breaks out. Each fire door has a fire resistance time and this largely depends on the use of the building. But as a minimum a fire door will at least give 30 minutes protection. Once the appropriate fire door inspection has been completed, the fire doors must be professionally installed to meet safety standards.
Take the first step towards ensuring the safety of your building and the people contained within it, by reading more about our Fire Door Inspections or contact us today for a no obligation quote.
