Front door - FD30 and Part L?

[Hogwarden]

Hi Folks,

 

Our carport attic anexe conversion is going nicely and it's time for me to try to source a front door. The entrance is on the ground floor, with a small hallway and stairs up to the main living spaces. I'm going for a low-energy build with air source heat pump so the front door must be insulated. I believe the building regs standard for this is Part L although this isn't a requirement as it is considered ancillary to the main building and not a new build which would interest building control in the energy performance of the building. However, I am very interested in the energy performance.

As the entrance is in the car parking area (although up-gradient from any parked cars) building control are insisting that it should be a door rated at FD30. I have a fire frame in place ready to accept the door, but can't find one which complies to F30 and Part L off-the-shelf.

 

All I can think to to is to fit a part L door and use a fire door upgrade intumescent varnish kit to bring it up to FD30. I would also need to replace any glazing with fire-rated laminated safety glass and fit the door hardware in an approved manner - with intumescent pads in the relevant places. I know how to do this and can get everything from screwfix and keep the data sheets and some photos for the building regs to inspect.

 

Does anyone have an opinion on this? If anyone has some experience in this it would be great to hear it!

 

Cheers, Howard

[tonyshouse]

Do you need glass in it?  There are plenty of fire doors available, generally solid wood with pyro glass. Frame can have intumescent strip grooves routered in and pads are available for hinges.

 

if the door is at the bottom of the stairs then it will be in a cool zone as cold air will puddle there an convection won’t take heat down there. 
 

I made my own front door by framing a fire door blank and insulating and cladding it 100mm thick and bespoke frame 

[markc]

Bit late now but a good rule of thumb is : unless the doors are standard, make the frame to fit the door, much harder to find a door to fit an existing frame.

[Hogwarden]

Thanks Tony, Mark,

 

We definately need the door glazed - there are no other windows in the entrance hall. The annexe is for an aging relative and they would like to see who is at the door when they answer it. Yep, it's the only room downstairs so will be a cold sink - but I'm putting a radiator down there to dry coats, boots etc. and keep it as warm as I can. I need it to be cozy throughout.

 

Ah, so you're suggesting taking an FD30 door (I've seen some glazed ones) and retro-fitting the insulation. This is a great idea but I'd like to keep the thickness down to standard if I can. Doing it the other way around, bringing an insulated door up to FD30 could just require the extra thickness of a few coats of varnish and that seems preferable to me.

 

The frame I fitted is FD30 and 2' 6" by 6' 6" which is about as standard as you could ask for:) The maximum thickness of door I could fit in the frame is 60mm realistically.

 

The silly thing is that the cars are parked on the other side of the ground-floor hall from the door - so there's no way a leaky fuel tank would cause a fire anywhere near the door. Bloomin' building control!

 

It's great to hear that I'm not alone in needing an insulated fire door. If it were just for me I'd definately go your way Tony, but my relative would be quite confused by a 150mm thick door:)

 

I've found that Rawlins Paints do an upgrade varnish kit which is pricey, but should do the trick. As the ground floor build is all externally clad in shiplap, I was going to use similar varnish on the walls so extending this to the door would be easy and I could save a bit buying larer quantities... that and retro-fitting fire-rated glazing.

Edited May 17, 2021 by Hogwarden
typos