Thorough testing keeps the heat in with Fire Doors
Fire doors are mostly inner building doors which require a lot of testing to ensure that they are up to safety standards. If they do not meet strict criteria they could cost lives and cost the manufacturer a huge amount of revenue loss.
Despite this tough testing, fire doors can actually be made from a number of materials, some of which would be considered fragile in certain circumstances. The materials include timber, steel, glass and minerals such as gypsum and vermiculite which on their own are relatively fragile but when subject to high temperatures these minerals adapt well and increase the sturdiness and solidity of doors when used in the right combination with the aforementioned materials.
Fire doors require a fire-resistance rating or fire protection rating which in the UK means they should be subjected to a British Standard Fire Test (BSFT). These fire test results are used by a test agency and then used in a report which notes such areas as distortion data, constructional details and pressure readings.
This rigorous testing ensures that all fire doors are well designed to keep fire closed into one room. This is all used as part of a passive fire protection system to reduce the spread of fire or smoke between rooms and to enable quick and safe evacuation from a building, structure or large ship.
While fire doors are designed to keep fire enclosed in single areas they are still combustible. During the testing it is acceptable for parts of the door to be lit and destroyed when being exposed to fire as long as the construction of the door meets the fire test criteria of keeping temperatures down on the non-fire side of the door construction. The overall goal of the door is to slow fire movement from one room to another for a limited amount of time, during this time any automatic or manual fire fighting can be carried out to restrict the spread of the fire while occupants can leave the building or area safely.
The hinge system on a fire doors ensures that the doors will swing closed so that if a fire was to start in any room then the room would automatically be closed off to keep any fire in. A lot of people find fire doors can be a slight irritation when they are frequently used doors as constant opening and automatic closing of doors can intrude on entering and exiting of a well used room, however these people would be thankful if a fire started as this room would either keep fire in one place or keep fire out from any external rooms.
Fire doors are available in many shapes, sizes and designs and they can provide an excellent level of safety providing of course that the office or household fire doors have passed the standard fire test.
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