Internal Fire Door

[JanetE]

We are having a look around for doors for our house which has three floors, so we have to have fire rated ones. We have been looking at JBK ones called River Oak from a company called Hamiltons online. They are really reasonable and I wondered if anyone else has experience of these doors?

We are also looking to source the frames and again looking for any recommendations.

Thanks.

[TerryE]

In the absence of other advice, it looks like we'll go with the JDK ones and the TP standard softwood frames with separate stop, as these are reasonable quality and the trade website is within 10-20% of comparable "best buys".  

We're doing all of the fitting ourselves.  One issue here is that the final wall widths don't match any of the stock frames so I have to rip them on my table-saw and finish them in my planer thicknesser whatever I buy.  This might seem a bit of a fuss, but at least this way I get the quality and accuracy that I want without paying £2-300 a day for a chippy whose finished work will just annoy both me and Jan. 

[Fallingditch]

On 16/06/2016 at 12:34, JanetE said:

"doors for our house which has three floors, so we have to have fire rated ones"

 

Can anybody point me at some authoritative guidance on what is actually required under regulation here (for my three storey house) ?

 

I have been reading conflcting information about this ...

[TerryE]

Bregs Part B Part B1.viii, B1 sect 1.7, 2.4, 2.6. Diagram , etc.  The essence of the regulations is that if you have a "protected stairway" then with a 3 storey house, then you are OK.  This means that you need linked battery backed fire alarms on all landings, plus a smoke detecting fire alarm in the kitchen; you also need the protected stairway lined with pink plasterboard (or equivalent) and 30min fire doors on all rooms opening onto the stairway.

[JanetE]

That's actually a heat detecting one in the kitchen rather than a smoke one, so it doesn't go off every time you burn the toast!

[Jeremy Harris]

9 hours ago, TerryE said:

Bregs Part B Part B1.viii, B1 sect 1.7, 2.4, 2.6. Diagram , etc.  The essence of the regulations is that if you have a "protected stairway" then with a 3 storey house, then you are OK.  This means that you need linked battery backed fire alarms on all landings, plus a smoke detecting fire alarm in the kitchen; you also need the protected stairway lined with pink plasterboard (or equivalent) and 30min fire doors on all rooms opening onto the stairway.

 

We fitted a heat-detecting alarm in the kitchen, not a smoke-detecting alarm, linked to an upstairs smoke-detecting alarm, positioned close to the bedroom doors.  The reason for this is that heat-detecting alarms don't give false alarms when cooking, whereas smoke-detecting alarms can.  This was on advice from our building inspector, after I'd bought and had installed two smoke alarms and he checked them.  Luckily they all use the same base, so it was easy to just unplug the kitchen smoke alarm and replace it with a heat alarm.  It does mean I have a new, unused, smoke alarm as a spare.

Edited February 26, 2017 by JSHarris
Edited to say that JanetE and I posted at the same time, saying the same thing!

[Steptoe]

On 26/02/2017 at 09:16, JSHarris said:

 

We fitted a heat-detecting alarm in the kitchen, not a smoke-detecting alarm, linked to an upstairs smoke-detecting alarm, positioned close to the bedroom doors.  The reason for this is that heat-detecting alarms don't give false alarms when cooking, whereas smoke-detecting alarms can.  This was on advice from our building inspector, after I'd bought and had installed two smoke alarms and he checked them.  Luckily they all use the same base, so it was easy to just unplug the kitchen smoke alarm and replace it with a heat alarm.  It does mean I have a new, unused, smoke alarm as a spare.

That spare alarm may not be much use ,

Most quality (AICO as example) have a 10 year lifespan from date of manufacture, so a very good chance that when the existing alarm requires replacing the 'spare' will be out of date.

 

[ProDave]

6 hours ago, Steptoe said:

That spare alarm may not be much use ,

Most quality (AICO as example) have a 10 year lifespan from date of manufacture, so a very good chance that when the existing alarm requires replacing the 'spare' will be out of date.

 

That's definitely true of ionisation smoke alarms where the actual sensor has a shelf life. Burt what about heat alarms where the sensor is just a thermistor. I can see no reason for those having a shelf life?

 

Also (a bit of a rant) why are heat alarms more expensive? the thermistor must cost a lot less than the ionisation detector module, yet heat alarms always seem to cost more.

 

[Steptoe]

2 hours ago, ProDave said:

That's definitely true of ionisation smoke alarms where the actual sensor has a shelf life. Burt what about heat alarms where the sensor is just a thermistor. I can see no reason for those having a shelf life?

 

Also (a bit of a rant) why are heat alarms more expensive? the thermistor must cost a lot less than the ionisation detector module, yet heat alarms always seem to cost more.

 

The internal batteries have a limited lifespan also,

That is assuming it is one of the better alarms with an internal battery.

 

[Jeremy Harris]

2 hours ago, ProDave said:

That's definitely true of ionisation smoke alarms where the actual sensor has a shelf life. Burt what about heat alarms where the sensor is just a thermistor. I can see no reason for those having a shelf life?

 

Also (a bit of a rant) why are heat alarms more expensive? the thermistor must cost a lot less than the ionisation detector module, yet heat alarms always seem to cost more.

 

 

 

The half life of Americium 241 in an ionisation smoke detector is 432 years, so the life of one of these is only really limited by things like the electronics ageing (drying out capacitors and probably corrosion on battery contacts) than the sensor degrading, as far as I can see.  I strongly suspect that the 10 year life limit often quoted is related to the electronics, as 10 years is probably around the point that things like the electrolytic capacitors and battery connections start to fail.  Optical smoke detectors are much the same, the life will be limited by the electronics, rather than the sensor (as long as it's kept clean).

 

As for why heat alarms are more expensive, I think it's just because they aren't made in such large quantities.  Ionisation and optical smoke detectors have been manufactured in the tens of millions for decades, whereas heat detectors haven't been that common in the high volume domestic market until relatively recently, I suspect, and then only really in new homes where building regs require linked detectors.  I bet most people just buy cheap ionisation detectors when they are fitting them to an existing house.

 

I think one of the main problems with smoke alarms is that a lot of people don't test them at all, and those that do probably only use the test button.  If more people did a proper smoke test once a year it might help.  Having said that, there was an article on the radio last week about children not being woken up by conventional fire alarms, and a suggestion that the tone needs to be a lower frequency and augmented with a voice warning of the fire.  Seems a good idea to me, as apparently the children killed by that bastard that set fire to his own home slept through the sound of a working fire alarm.