How to choose the right commercial fire doors
Selecting the right commercial fire door is essential for offices, hotels or high-rise buildings. When selecting the right commercial fire door, procuring a commercial doorset that reduces the risk on your project is essential.
Here are five key checks to make when choosing a commercial fire door:
1. Fire rating
Not all commercial doorsets need to be fire rated. However, it is important to consider the fire safety of the building as a system, when deciding which commercial doors need to fire rated. This also includes how long the commercial doors can resist the passage of fire but potentially also smoke and insulation.
To ensure your development remains compliant for the future, you should opt for an E rated fire door as all national standards have been removed from building regulations with regard to fire protection performance, so all of the parts of BS476 for both reaction and resistance to fire in approved document B have been removed. Only the EN standards can be used to define performance from the end of the 5-year coexistence period which is 2nd September 2029.
In addition, all opinion-based Field of Application reports and engineered assessments have also been taken away as a way of demonstrating fire resistance performance. All reports used for fire doors will have to have a formal classification to EN13501-2 and this means all that can be covered is what has been directly tested and is further covered by Direct Field of Application rules and or extended application rules from the EN15269 series of EXAP standards.
2. Lead times
Commercial projects often come with time pressures, which means lead time are an important consideration when procuring a commercial fire door. By selecting a doorset with a short lead time, this will reduce risk on your project, as decisions don’t have to be made as far in advance. Often, projects change, such as door sizes, finishes etc so having the flexibility to make decisions nearer to completion will reduce the risk of change.
3. Entrance doors that are PAS24 rated
Unlike internal doors, commercial entrance doors will have to be PAS24 rated. The latest building regulations state that all new front doors and flat entrance doors should be PAS24 rated, meaning that developers should be procuring PAS24 doors for their commercial projects from now on.
If you are procuring commercial doorsets for data centres or offices, you may want PAS24 doors internally too, if there is a room containing sensitive or private information.
It is also a good idea to source fire rated entrance doors, as this will provide maximum safety for your commercial space.
4. Internal doors
Internal doors are often one of the last parts of a development to be installed, so selecting an internal commercial door with a short lead time will allow you to make any last-minute adjustments to finish or size. In addition, selecting a commercial door with an adjustable architrave, like the Modulo Internal Doorset, will allow you to achieve maximum flexibility should your structural opening change and reduce the risk on your project.
5. Durability
At Modulo Doorsets, we exist to simplify timber doorsets to reduce every potential risk to a minimum. This is why all of our timber doorsets are built with maximum durability in mind. When selecting a commercial fire door, often laminate doors are more durable, easy to wipe, and the consistent grains provide a more contemporary aesthetic than veneer doors.
Commercial fire doors are often in high-traffic areas, which means durability is essential for maintaining compliance as well as the finish of the doorset.
If you have any questions of commercial fire door compliance or how to simplify internal doors for your project, then please contact our team to help reduce risk on your project.