This applies to England only
There has been further guidance released for the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2020. The guidance relates to any “responsible person”. A responsible person is someone who is responsible for fire risk assessments on the building. For buildings that are over 11 metres in height, ensuring flat entrance doors are in good working order and they must send over floor and building plans to fire and rescue.
Duties of the Responsible Person (Buildings over 11m in height)
Fire doors are crucial in preventing the spread of fire and smoke in buildings. The Fire Safety Act 2021 clarified that flat entrance doors must be considered in the Fire Risk Assessment mandated by the Fire Safety Order. The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 require regular checks to ensure that self-closing devices are working and the fire doors, including flat entrance doors, are in efficient working order and in good repair. These checks are to ensure that the existing door standard is maintained.
During the fire risk assessment, the assessor may recommend improvements to be made to the door and it will be for the Responsible Persons to determine how these are implemented. If faults are found with the doors, then it may be necessary to undertake appropriate maintenance to ensure they remain fit for purpose or, where needed, to replace them. However, there is no requirement to replace a fire door simply because it does not meet the current standard under Building Regulations if the door remains in full working order from a fire safety point of view.
Flat entrance door checks
The Fire Safety Regulations 2022 do not specify requirements for the fire resistance of the doors. The Regulations make no change to the required fire performance of flat entrance doors; this continues to be a matter for the fire risk assessment carried out for compliance with Article 9 of the Fire Safety Order and applicable guidance.
It is stressed that the purpose of the fire door checks under Regulations 10(4) and b(6) is primarily to ensure that self-closing devices are working, and the flat entrance doors are in good working order from a fire safety point of view, while also checking that there are no visually obvious faults signs of tampering, defects or changes to the doors provided.
Guidance on the fire performance of the doors continues to be available in the Fire Safety in Purpose-Built Blocks of Flats guide.
The guidance advises that a fire risk assessor might determine, according to risk, original flat entrance doors that would not meet the current standard for 30 minutes’ fire resistance and might not be fitted with intumescent strips and smoke seals, should either be replaced, upgraded or simply left in situ.
In particular, the guidance advises that ‘notional’ FD30 doors, which satisfied earlier standards for flat entrance doors, will usually continue to be acceptable for compliance with the Fire Safety Order unless there is a need to improve their fire performance to compensate for a specific building design, or shortcomings in other fire precautions.
Floor plans and building plan
In addition, you must provide the fire and rescue service with a copy of these plans by electronic means, for example by email. (https://www.nationalfirechiefs.org.uk/Information-sharing-with-fire-and-rescue-services)
Please see the link below for the full updated guidance
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