Fire doors & compartmentation

FD30S is the floor, not the target

Bedroom and corridor doors in a care home are FD30S as a minimum: thirty minutes integrity plus cold smoke sealing. Doors onto protected stairs and across compartment lines are frequently FD60S. The S matters more than people think. Smoke kills long before fire arrives, and a door with intumescent strips but no cold smoke seal will pass a fire test and let a corridor fill.

Third party certification, and the whole doorset

Specify a complete certificated doorset from one supplier: leaf, frame, seals, hinges, closer and lock as a tested assembly. BWF Certifire or BM TRADA Q Mark. Buying a certificated leaf and hanging it in an uncertificated frame with unrated hinges gives you a door that has never been tested in the configuration it is installed in, and an audit trail that falls apart under one question.

Gaps are measured in millimetres

Two to four millimetres between leaf and frame at the head and both sides. The threshold gap must not exceed the figure on the door certificate, and where smoke control is required it needs a seal or a drop down device rather than a generous gap. A three millimetre feeler gauge costs almost nothing and settles the argument on site.

The closer has to work for the resident too

This is the real conflict in a care home and it is where compliance is lost. A closer set hard enough to overcome the latch reliably can be too heavy for a frail resident to open, so staff prop the door. Specify closers with adjustable closing and latching action separately, size them to the leaf, and use electromagnetic hold opens tied to the alarm where a door genuinely needs to stand open. A wedge is a defeated fire door.

Ironmongery is part of the fire rating

Three hinges minimum, all fire rated and CE or UKCA marked. Intumescent pads behind hinges and lock cases where the certificate calls for them. Letterplates, air transfer grilles and vision panels only where the tested configuration includes them, and glazing only in a rated system with the correct beads and glazing seal. Every hole in a fire door is a hole in the fire door.

Compartmentation is the bit above the ceiling

Nurse call cabling, data, heating pipework and extract ducting all cross compartment walls, usually in the ceiling void where nobody looks. Each penetration needs a tested fire stopping system, correctly installed, and recorded. In an occupied home this is the single most likely place for a thirty minute compartment to be a five minute one, and a door survey will never find it.

A door that opens automatically is not automatically compliant

An automated fire door is not a replacement door closer with a motor attached. In normal use it opens on approach for accessibility and independence. In a fire it has to do exactly what an ordinary fire door does: close fully, latch, and hold the compartment line. The two behaviours are governed by different standards and most failures happen at the join between them. Check that the automation has been commissioned as part of the complete doorset, not fitted to a door that was already certified and left alone. BS 7273-4 governs how the operator interfaces with the fire alarm, so on activation the door must release and close under its own closer rather than waiting for a signal that may not come. BS EN 16005 governs the powered mechanism itself, including safe opening and closing forces so the door remains usable by someone with limited strength or mobility without becoming dangerous. BS 9999 sets the wider building context the doorset sits inside. None of the three are optional and none substitute for the others. The most common trap on a walk round is accepting that the door opens and closes as proof it works. That tells you the motor runs. It tells you nothing about whether it closes fully and latches, whether it responds correctly to the fire alarm, or whether the ironmongery fitted is compatible with the doorset's certification. Ask for the commissioning records and the certification for the complete doorset, not just the closer, before signing the job off. A doorset remains certified only when every component on it is one the certification covers. Changing the ironmongery or altering the leaf to fit the automation invalidates it, and a mismatched hinge or handle is enough to do that even when the door itself is unmodified. Put a maintenance regime on it from day one. An automated fire door has more that can fail than a manual one and needs regular inspection and testing, not a fit and forget approach.

Wedged, tied or hooked open

The most common finding in any care home, and it is rarely laziness. It is a trolley run, a resident who becomes distressed behind a closed door, or a corridor that feels institutional. Solve the reason and the wedge disappears. Fit a hold open device where the need is real and the door will still close when it matters.

Closers removed or wound off

Somebody complains the door is too heavy, a maintenance operative backs the closer off, and the door stops latching. It now looks completely normal. Check that every door latches from a half open position, not just from wide open, because a door that does not latch is not a fire door.

Intumescent strips painted over

Corridor redecoration is where fire doors go to die. Paint or varnish across an intumescent strip can stop it expanding, and the door still looks perfect. Put fire doors on the decoration handover checklist and inspect the strips after any painting.

Doors dropped, gaps grown

Buildings move and hinges wear. A door that was three millimetres on handover can be eight at the leading edge four years later, and the gap grows from the top down so it is easy to miss at eye level. Measure the full height of the leading edge, not one point.

Services drilled through after handover

A new nurse call point, a WiFi access point, a TV aerial. Somebody drills the frame or the leaf, or runs a cable through the compartment wall, and no fire stopping goes back in. This is why an alterations permit matters more in a care home than almost anywhere else.

No evidence, even where the work was done

Inspectors rarely dispute that inspections happened. They ask what was found and what was done about it. A tick sheet with no remedial records, no dates and no signature demonstrates that defects were identified and left, which is a worse position than never having looked.