Fire Doors

Has anyone thought about BS9999 as opposed the Approved Doc B?

Barry,
The signage issue is a current problem - had it have been pre RRO you would have had no option but to fit them but now in theory you have a choice if you can demonstrate that the alternative solution will achieve the same result. The problem that you state is that many enforcing authorities are using the guides the same way as pre RRO days which means that you have very little choice in the matter.

Regards Alan

Sorry I was notclear the refusal of the signage was pre RRO days.

But now even with the RRO in place we have a problem with fire officers quoting the RRO verbatim even if it puts the occupants at greater risk.
I think it is due to to having the back up of a piece of paper if it all goes wrong.

Barry

Hi David,
I think that this is one of the problems with the whole process of Fire Risk Assessments and people do not see it as a balance but more strict compliance with the guidance which of course misses the point completely.

In respect of the extinguishers on the floor if my client had not asked my advice he would have had to fixed about 20 extinguishers to the structural steel work in a 24/7 call centre which was not easy and could have been quite costly. The Fire Officer was telling my client that he could not occupy the building unless this was done which of course was totally unreasonable as the extinguishers and stands had already been purchased. I did ask the FO if he was going to write to Marks and Spencer and other companies to tell them the same thing because a lot of companies use these stands.

Getting back to the Fire Door - Keep Shut notices as I stated I don't think the reason that was put forward for not fittng them was reasonable. If the person had indicated that they were providing a different solution eg fire plans on each floor, a fire door useage survey and regular training/inspection then it may have been reasonable to suggest that they weren't required but a response indicating that they weren't required was, in my opinion very misleading.

As you say there will always be a number of different solutions to each problem but it is important to examine them in depth before deciding on which route to take.

Regards Alan

"What you have to be able to do is to present an argument that is reasonable, does the job and would stand up in a court of law and this the key to getting these types of problems resolved".

Alan. This last statement of yours pretty much somes it all up. If the WHOLE risk assessment is "suitable and sufficient" then it really does not matter if there are fire door signs or if extinguishers are on the floor etc. etc.

Yes. We would all like to see full adherance to British Standards, Guides, Codes etc. and many FIre Officers and Consultants, not unreasonably, stick to those like glue but there are reasonable occasions when some variance is perfectly OK.

A Fire risk assessment is bespoke. It is fit for that building in that place with those people and materials at those material times.

Different FIre Officers and different Consultants will have different solutions to the same building. We must live with that and negociate where necessary.
The proof lies in the courts and in any future fire events.

Regards - David

Barry,
I came up with the idea for a door edge sign after giving the matter a geat deal of thought and this was how my reasoning went:

1. It is a general requirement to indicate fire doors with an appropriate sign and whilst the standard guidance indicates face fixed there is I believe an argument to allow edge fixed signs.

2. The reason people need to know which doors are fire doors is that sometimes it can be difficult to tell which doors are fire doors and to remind them to keep them shut. With this argument in mind if the door is shut it is doing what it is supposed to do and therefore you do not need a face fixed sign.

3. The sign is only visable when the door is held open and this is when people need reminding.

It looks like this fire officer was someone who went strictly by the book and did not want to see reason. I came up against one the other day who informed my client that he had got to fix extinguishers to the wall and that the floor mounts were unacceptable - needless to say I changed his mind and he now knows that the advice that he was giving was not reasonable.
What you have to be able to do is to present an argument that is reasonable, does the job and would stand up in a court of law and this the key to getting these types of problems resolved.

Regards Alan

Alan

I remember those edge stickers well and we were going to use them on some very nice veneered doors leading to walkin cupboards on one of my sites.
The local fire officer refuse to countenance them and wanted face fixed labels "as required by law" the tenant said ok and put them on the inside face of the door as the law was unclear on what face they had to be on, just as long as they were clear, Which they were when the door was open.

Barry

Shaun,
I think that you have misunderstood my response and I did state that - "Whilst I would like to have agreed with Mike and Barry I can't because my experience tells me that it would be unwise to go down this road." Also these words "Fire doors were left open and staff were not trained in evacuation techniques in the nursing home where 14 elderly people were killed in a fire, a fatal incident inquiry (FAI) has heard" were not my words but those, which were reported in the media.

I can agree with some of the things that you state and certainly training is a major issue, which is generally not adequately addressed in the UK as this incident proves and I could give you many instances where the lack of training has played a major part in the outcome of many serious events. You could argue that Rosepark has more reason than most not to label fire doors because this was their home but have you ever been around one of these buildings at 1am and looked at the fire precautions?

When I worked in the NHS the responsibility for licensing nursing homes was the responsibility of the local health authority and I was part of the team that visited these establishments and I indicated to the authority that carrying out day inspections was a waste of time because day time was when we were expected and so I convinced them to carry out night inspections. They were staggered at what they found and these included fire doors wedged open, unqualified and untrained staff in charge and very reduced staffing levels which were well below what was required.

In this type of situation you have to study what went wrong and why and I will give you my thoughts on the matter. When people look at care and nursing homes many think that it’s a quick way to make money and so they design homes to the lowest possible level of fire safety and one of the ways that they save money is on fire door control – they are told that you need a fire door here and another one here etc. and they have to be self closing and provided with a notice and this is generally how the home starts off. Unfortunately, they have missed one of the basic ways that nurses nurse and this is by sound and when you put someone behind a self closing fire door they can’t do this so they wedge the door open - label or not.

If we now look at hotels the wedging of fire doors is the same but for different reasons, which I won’t go into now but sufficient to say, that this is fairly widespread in the UK. It is interesting when you look at some other countries where it’s not the problem that it is in the UK because they have a different approach to how they overcome the problem. If you take a country like Germany they don’t generally label fire doors but what they have is a fire plan of the building on each floor showing all of the protected escape routes, fire doors, equipment, signs etc. and this is a very good solution but it also includes excellent fire training.


Cheryl has stated “As you can imagine this would not look very attractive” and this appears to be her only reason which I feel is not a good reason not to provide them – remember I also offered a solution where a label on the door edge may be the solution and I have checked they are still available.

I hope that I have put a little more reasoning to my comments but if not please feel free to get in touch.

Regards Alan

Alan,

I am not questioning your undoubted experience in this arena however I do not believe the case you cite is an example of a problem that would have been avoided if the fire doors were correctly labelled.

Your opening paragraph states ‘Fire doors were left open and staff were not trained in evacuation techniques…..’.

I my opinion this is stated quite clearly as inadequate staff training that caused the problem and not a lack door labelling…had the staff been appropriately trained perhaps the doors would not be left open?

We need to maintain perspective and Cheryl raised a specific question in respect of bedroom doors nothing more, the case you cite does not make specific reference to location of doors.

I support Mike’s common sense view in respect of the hotel and believe staff training and awareness are the key issues not labelling as a hotel has to accommodate any and all conditions that residents present themselves with at the check in desk. They may have any manner of disability, learning difficulty or most likely be under the influence of drink... the list of possible conditions is almost endless and methods need to be adopted, trained & practiced to ensure safe occupancy of all residents.

As a regular resident my primary concern when closing my room door is always security not fire safety so to Mikes point the doors are closed by default not because there is a sticker stating 'close the door or you valuables will go for a walk....'

I think that this fire highlights the problem very well:

23 Nov 2009
Fire doors were left open and staff were not trained in evacuation techniques in the nursing home where 14 elderly people were killed in a fire, a fatal incident inquiry (FAI) has heard.

Questions were also raised over whether the fire alarm at Rosepark Care Home in Uddingston was frequently checked, and why gates leading to the home were locked, potentially delaying access for fire engines and ambulances.

The inquiry was hearing from Phyllis West, a staff nurse at Rosepark at the time of the fire in January 2004.

She said that, despite stickers reminding staff to keep them shut, fire doors were frequently left open.

James Wolffe QC asked: “Even though there were blue stickers on the doors saying Fire Door Keep Shut, were there doors, still left open throughout

the day?” “Yes, that is true,” said Ms West.

Cheryl,

Unfortunately, I strongly disagree with the comment that it is not necessary to indicate which doors are fire doors and here are my reasons:

1.All of the current guidance and standards will indicate "Fire doors that have been fitted with self closing devices should be labelled Fire Door - Keep Shut".

2. In an ideal world it would be nice to think that everyone was aware where fire doors were or should be fitted but this is not the case and even when doors are provided with the required notice they still get "wedged open" so if they don't have the notice how can you easily say to someone "look at the notice this is a fire door". Usually, when you do this people can see their mistake straight away but if there is no notice the reply would be "how should I know that it was a fire door?

3. If you only label some fire doors people tend to think that they are the only fire doors in the building and the other doors don't matter which of course could not be further from the truth.

4. I recently did an undercover investigation for BBC Inside Out and of the 14 hotels I looked at 13 had fire doors wedged open or some other fire door defects and most of these doors were correctly labelled - if we can't control the problem with labels on we certainly won't help the problem by not providing the labels.

5. Only 2 days ago I wrote to a hotel that I had recently stayed in about a correctly labelled fire door that was held open with a floor hold open device that depended on someone going to close it in a fire situation. This was not a small hotel but was part of a very large chain that should have known better.

6. Some years ago I designed a label that could be fitted on the door edge which was only visible when the door was open and this I believe is is stil available.

Whilst I would like to have agreed with Mike and Barry I can't because my experience tells me that it would be unwise to go down this road.

Regards Alan (mail@alanfcox.co.uk)

MIke Kane has given some first class advice cheryl. Not all fire doors need to be labelled.
Good idea to ask why someone has asked for this?

Hello Cheryl,

We at Fire UK do not believe that it is necessary to automatically label every hotel bedroom door as a fire door.

A modicum of common sense needs to be employed here. Hotel bedroom doors are by their very nature kept locked shut when not in use, therefore in this case the function of the fire door is constantly employed.

It is necessary that any hotel bedroom door and frame be kept in good order to maintain their integrity and general fire resistance

Where fire doors do need to be identified is where it might not be immediately obvious that the door in question is a fire door, for example in general circulation areas or areas where doors may be deliberately or accidently held open.

Those who suggested that you label every bedroom door should be questioned as to their reasoning behind this ?

Best wishes

Mike Kane

Hi

I have a question abour fire doors.

We have a 100 bedroomed hotel. All the bedroom doors are fire doors. My question is that we have been told that all these doors need to be labelled fire door. Is this correct?

As you can imagine this would not look very attractive and is seems that other hotels do not seem to follow this.

When doing your risk assessment, you can use Table 4 in Approved Document B1 (Design for Horizontal Escape) with guidance notes 3.21 to 3.23 as a guideline when working out capacity of a room based on the number and width of exits. But it's very much a starting point. In a risk assessment you also need to take into account what else is in the room (furniture, equipment) as obstructions to escape, also what fire loads and risks the room contents entail, what means of warning there is, what travel distance people would have to cover, and who is going to be in the room and using it for what (e.g. a creche would be very different to an office meeting).

Hi Matt,
Thanks for providing the additional information which is most helpful. The first thing to note is that your employer should have carried out a Fire Risk Assessment - this is a legal requirement. Can you ask to see it because this document should highlight if the second exit is required. Whilst from what you say it only appears to be a low risk work area I would have thought that the second exit was there for a reason and this may have been because the building had a previous Fire Certificate or was required under Building Regulations and my first instinct would be to keep it.
I can tell you of a similar low risk situation where the employer decided to brick up the second exit on the grounds of security and 12 people died in a subsequent fire. Why is your emplyer trying to take this exit out of use? If your employer is not very helpful you can always tell the Fire Service of your concerns but if your employer knows that you are concerned about it there is always the risk that he will put 2 and 2 together.
I hope that this is helpful but if you want any additional help please feel free to get in touch.

Regards Alan

10X8m has between 5-10 people working in it. it has a gas heater just outside the the main exit. there is a second door but they are trying to block it off this is why i am trying to find out whether they can. no one is disabled. its a work area where super glue is used and the fitting of harnesses in to helmets. i hope this helps you to give me an answer thanks ever so much

Hi Matt,

That is an almost possible question to answer without a little more basic information and in order to answer your question you need to know:
1. How many people work there and are any disabled?
2. The size of the area.
3. What work is carried on there.
4. Are any dangerous or flammable substances in use?

If you could answer these it would be easier to answer because all the law states is that you should have reasonable means of escape and you can only give an idea about this with this information.
Hope that helps.

Regards Alan

a room with people working in it in a factory. how many means of escape should there be by law?

Part B of the building regs may help here. Volume 1 is for residential, part 2 for non residential. Residential is where people sleep and are more stringent for obvious reasons.

John

Alan

Thanks for that.

Barry

Barry,
I have spoken to my friend in the Insurance Industry and he informs me that they are only insuring the building so would have no real interest in this aspect. He did add that they would verbally point out the problem but not put it into writing.

Regards Alan

@Mike

I used to have a flat in one of the buildings that I managed and that was completely excluded from the fire precations act at the time, thank for the heads up on the change of emphasis.

Barry L

Hello all,

sleeping arrangements within a workplace does not constitute a "dwelling" at all and the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 applies in full.

Regards

Mike Kane

Hi Barry,

Yes, you are right about the insurance and I will ask a friend of mine who is in the insurance industry how they would view it. This appears to be a fairly common occurance these days as I encountered it quite recently where a company that was based abroad wanted to bring in it's own workforce and rather than put them up in hotels they wanted to use their factory as a sleeping base. They saw this as a more cost effective solution and when I pointed out all of the problems they changed their minds.

Regards Alan