FOCUS
Current affairs
noise transmission (Part E), has meant that design features have been incorporated that render a doorset asymmetrical, and therefore testing from both sides is the only means by which a potential failure will manifest itself. But is it fair to single out just composite
doorsets, and include all composite doorsets, given that those that have failed to date are either thermoplastic or GRP foam insulated based products? For example, is it reasonable to incorporate a solid timber core doorset with an alternative external material facing (essentially a composite product by definition) within the new requirements, and require the product to be tested on both sides?
Has the MHCLG been too hasty in publishing both Advice Note 16 and 17? Are we going to see the same failure rate in timber doorsets when they are also subjected to the government fire testing regime? These are all questions that are floating around the composite door sector at present. All of them are valid and reasonable concerns.
Security focus
For many years, Secured by Design (SBD), the national police crime prevention initiative, has worked closely with national and local government, manufacturers, trade associations and standards authorities at home and abroad to establish effective standards in the building and construction industry, which includes third party independent UKAS accreditation of security related products.
40 OCTOBER 2018
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Over the last 20 years, through our Test House Studies Group and Certification Bodies Group, we have communicated very closely with the test and certification community and have set minimum criteria for security, which includes a rolling test audit every year. Security certification for new fabricators always includes initial type testing, because it has been shown that not every fabricator manufactures the door in exactly the same way. The importance of this in security terms has been warranted by an initial type testing failure rate of 50% – proving that fabricators do not always produce a doorset of exactly the same quality to system or component manufacturers. General compliance with fire regulations results in significant use of ‘cascaded evidence’ from component suppliers, and global assessments with no primary test evidence and no factory production control in the fabricator’s name – relying on the fabricator’s word that the doors are constructed exactly as per the specification, and that there is no deviation in any component. This means a fabricator could provide
fire doorsets without having undertaken a fire test itself, with a liberal interpretation of the original component manufacturer’s test evidence that would ordinarily fall outside the scope of a certificated product utilising the same base evidence. It is important to point out that a fire doorset is a safety critical component of the apartment/flat development.
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