Trapped by fire

[brianivor]

I am new to fire doors and am a little concerned whether it is contra to Health and Safety legislation to fit intumescent seals to the door of an occupied room?

I was just thinking, as I fit my first such door, that if I or any of my family was in the room and a fire started just OUTSIDE and activated the intumescent seals, the material would expand and, I reason, would seal the door tightly shut such that the occupants may be trapped in the room.

I am not happy.............

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Should a fire start outside the room that had taken enough of a hold as to have activated the seals how would you propose to escape through the now raging inferno? Rest assured you will not want to open the door, it will be so hot you will not even be able to stand close to it it will practically be glowing! in fact unless you have an escape window you should be on the mobile saying to your nearest and dearest that you love them as your time is up. The idea is that you stay in the room until rescued.

Its not all doom and gloom of course, that was all a bit dramatic wasn't it? For which I apologise. Presumably you have a hallway on the other side of your bedroom door in which case they are a fairly low risk room and as such the chances of a fire occurring in your hallway (compared to a kitchen or living room) are very low anyway. You will also be woken by your smoke alarms (you have got alarms haven't you?) at the hint of smoke giving you time to escape. Shutting doors to vulnerable rooms overnight and ensuring you and your family know your escape routes in the dark and making sure the front door always has a key handy hanging next to it will keep you safe.

Sleep well, there really isn't the need to worry about this.

http://fire.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=4696.40;wap2

 

[^woody^]

Firstly, the strips wont seal the door, it could be opened

Secondly, if it gets so hot on one side of the door so as to expand the strips, then you are in for some seriously singed eyebrows as soon as you open the door.

The general idea is that fire doors are meant to hold back a fire, and not used for walking through when there is a fire on the other side of the door

 

[foxhole]

Not his fault he's an Essex boy.

 

[Alarm]

Having seen a result of a fire on a call out, the persons whom opened the door were pretty much toasted. Brigade said somewhere in the region of 1000 degrees hit them. It was later assertained the smoke alarms were not functioning as from some false alarms they were disconnected.

1 Always check detectors.
2 If possible have another escape route.
3 Never disconnect detectors.
4 See 1 and 3.

 

[JohnD]

Freddy, thanks for that interesting link. My house has old fire doors with 25mm stops, I have started having them replaced with new 6-panel 30min doors and new liners with intumescent strips incorporating smoke pile seals, I wrongly thought there was an advantage in having 25mm stops on the new liners, but apparently not, so I will revert to the 12mm ones on the remaining doors. I am using a pro joiner who takes a pride in a neat 2p-width gap, though he has planed to let the bristles "kiss" the door or it is difficult to shut..

My reason for changing is only appearance, the old doors are flush and the liners have been knocked about and badly painted. I like the Perkos so am keeping them.