Smoke & Fire Protection Feature
Safety & Security
Missing Closers... Whoa, Heavy!
Fire doors are crucial for safety, yet their weight often causes residents to remove door closers, compromising fire protection. Pete Davies of Fireco highlights how free-swing devices can address this by ensuring doors close properly during emergencies.
F
or those of us who know our RRFSOs from our BS7273-4s, there’s no question that fire doors save lives; that the weight associated with operating a fire door is a necessary evil, a symptom of those innocuous-
looking closers that ensure doors can shut safely. But when we think about who uses those doors on a daily basis, are we expecting too much from residents? We know that effort is made to educate ‘non-fire safety’ people on the
importance of fire doors, but I believe that for most, this doesn’t stick. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think for a moment this is a deliberate and malicious attempt to ignore sound, tried and tested guidance. I just think that for most people who use fire doors daily, fire protection is something that the fire and rescue services do, rather than something they should be mindful of when, say, opening the door to their flat. Ah, the humble flat entry door. Give a thought to this oſt-overlooked bit of
kit. A lot of science goes into the design of these doors to ensure maximum fire protection and that each installation is instructed by years of experience and best practice guidance. Te importance of doors being able to close safely with integrity uncompromised cannot be overstated. But does the resident know this? More importantly, do they really care?
Disengaged door closers are becoming a massive problem within social
housing and general-purpose flats. For most residents, flat entry doors are nothing more than a barrier to their home, a hurdle to overcome. And what happens? Out comes the screwdriver, off comes the closer and hey-presto! Suddenly that barrier is beaten, the hurdle hurdled. Magically, the door to their home is suddenly lighter and easier to use! It would be easy to assume that the only residents likely to struggle getting
past the door to their flat would either be elderly or disabled, but this isn’t so. Everyone is inconvenienced by heavy fire doors. Struggling to get into one’s apartment is not exclusive to the elderly or those who rely on mobility aids. Tey irritate people of all abilities and age ranges. Fire doors do not discriminate.
THE EXTENT OF THE PROBLEM A conversation with a customer at a local authority in Southern England highlighted this. A survey of 6,000 flat entry doors in general-purpose flats identified 1,700 doors with disengaged or removed closers. Tat’s over 28% of their doors. Another, Housing Association, told us recently that
www.housingmmonline.co.uk | HMMOctober/November 2024 | 39
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