Current affairs
Without adequate training, a person would not be in a position to know whether a fire door would fail, or whether it would perform as it should, to offer adequate protection in the event of a fire. Anyone undertaking the Exova BM Trada
certified course will know that there is a great deal to learn about fire door assessment. The course covers how fire doors are tested, assessed and certified, how a fire door should be correctly installed and what determines the success or failure of a fire resisting doorset. If fire door inspections are not being carried out by fully approved and certified individuals, how can building occupants and owners be safe in the knowledge that they are being protected? Often as part of the fire risk assessment, a small sample of fire doors are given a quick visual inspection. This is unlikely to pick up any faults with the fire door, and could lead to a building having several doorsets that are not compliant.
In the case of a fire, this could be a very serious situation, putting lives at risk and resulting in serious consequences and fines. Often after fire door inspections, remedial works may be required to protect occupants and ensure compliance, which needs to
be part of regular planned maintenance for a building.
Regular inspections
With the current concerns about fire risks in residential and commercial buildings, there is a very real need to prioritise fire door inspections to ensure that remedial work can be carried out as quickly as possible. Indeed, there is a lack of understanding about the need for fully certified fire doors. Budgetary pressures again may result
in an inferior fire door being specified, which may not be certified to perform to either 30 or 60 minutes’ fire resistance. This may also mean that it does not meet that building’s minimum fire safety requirements, for example the ironmongery may not be CE marked for fire performance. The same is true of fire compartmentation.
This needs to be considered as part of the overall fire risk assessment. However, this is often not given due consideration, as the responsible person in most cases will not have the skills or understanding to be able to carry it out effectively. As compartmentation requires more than just a visual inspection, specialist skills,
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www.frmjournal.com JUNE 2018
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