Can a set of hinges hold two fire doors?

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Hi there

Need to hang a pair of solid wood fire doors (I'm guessing they will be 35-40kg each) ... but they need to be hung so that one is hinged to the other, and then this pair is then hinged on a single side ... eg. they will be like a very loose bifold door, and fold away to one side when open.

My question is ... will this be feasible? Will I need to specify really massive hinges? And how many do you think I'll need? The width of both doors combined will be 137cm.

I was thinking that if it was going to be a problem I could always put a small caster underneath the furthest corner of the 2nd door ... but I'd much rather not as I think it will detract from the look (there would have to be a big gap under the rest of the door) ... plus it might mark the floor etc. For aesthetic reasons I really don't want to put a track up top and make a traditional bifold door.

If anyone had any experience of the above, it would be great to hear from them - thanks!
 
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you might and a big MIGHT?be able to do this with 2 pairs on each door?
along with your idea of a castor to help with the shear weight.
you also might have to look at some 5 or 6 inch butts.
 
You could, but they would not be any use as fire doors as they would not present a stable fire stop.
 
Sorry - should have said - they are only 'fire' doors because we wanted that solid feel and better sound insulation ... there is no fire regulation issue in this case.

The two doors will obviously have to be hinged together in the middle (2 hinges). And right now I figure on getting 4 x 150mm strong butt hinges for the actual connection to the door frame itself.
 
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you will probably find you will need 4 hinges on the slave door aswell.
 
Sorry gregers ... don't understand ... it's only 685mm wide, and anyway, what's the difference between hanging off another door, or hanging off a door frame? The real struggle surely is at the frame end!
 
dont know how much the doors weigh,but in the real world you hang a fire door with 3 butts possibly 4 when directed to.
you want to use 4 butts on frame end then only 2 on the slave door,personally if it was mine i would at least over engineer the problem and use 4 butts on each door,just to make sure i limited the amount of shear weight.you will be surprised how much pressure will be put on the frame end.if and when it fails it will make a real mess of the frame when it pulls out.
 

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