Fire doors

[Anya]

We have had a loft conversion done with one bedroom and toilet room. The stairs leading up to it are the same as any normal stair case in a 2up 2down house. The room has a 30 min firedoor fitted. We have been told by our building inspector that ALL doors in the whole house have to be changed to 30 minute fire doors!!! At present our doors are 1950's gems...beautiful. I am gutted that we have to remove such a lovely feature of the house downstairs and up!! Is this regulation?
Any help very appreciated
Anya x

 

[Tipper]

Doors can be protected by applying a special heat resistant intumescent paint instead of fitting new doors.

The BCO should know this and should have told you.

This is just one of many suppliers I found on the internet.

http://www.envirograf.com/acrobat/doorpaper.pdf

 

[Anya]

Thanks for this, going to take a look now
Anya x

 

[chappers]

Another option may be to fit interlinked smoke alarms to all habitable rooms in the house, but you will have to see if your LA will allow this. They do here in Oxford

 

[Tipper]

Surely the whole point about fire doors is to protect the escape route if there is a fire. In this case the stairwell, I presume.

How do smoke alarms do that?

 

[jeds]

There are special coatings for upgrading doors but these do not comply with the British Standard and are normally only allowed in listed buildings. You might be able to pursued the inspector to allow it but I am doubtful.

An alternative is to add a layer to one side of the door sufficient to bring it up to the standard. That way you only lose one side of the door and actually you still have the door so it could be restored to it's original at some point in the future. (not until you revert back to a two storey house though - that would be very naughty otherwise.) You will also have to add intumescenet strips to the jambs.

If there is a paint on product that does comply I would be very interested to know about it. When I say comply, I mean certified.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

There are special coatings for upgrading doors but these do not comply with the British Standard and are normally only allowed in listed buildings. You might be able to pursued the inspector to allow it but I am doubtful.

They don't mind here in Devon, it was an inspector who first suggested the method to me many moons ago! Realistically the existing door needs to meet certain parameters before it will be considered suitable for 'treatment'.