Pacman

Can anyone confirm when the BWF coloured plug scheme was introduced on fire doors? I understand the BWF was founded in 1976 so presumably the plugs were introduced some time thereafter. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

I occasionally come across double-leaf fire doors with smoke seals on both sides of the meeting stiles. Is this a valid configuration? To be effective, a smoke seal should surely be making contact with a solid surface rather than an opposing seal. A further consequence of such configurations is that the overall meeting stile gap tends to be greater than that of doorsets where just a single smoke seal exists. Thanks in advance for any guidance!

Neil - apols for delayed response. Yes I am sure. By some miracle, given the age of these doors and the extent to which they'd been 'butchered', I found a couple with the following fire cert label intact (See attached). I realise one has to be careful assuming that all doors in a residential block are identical but those that appeared original had certain aesthetic and constructional features that led me to believe they were from the same manufacturer. Furthermore, some doors did have a single 20mm seal so I'm reasonably certain this is a consequence of contractors, who are unfamiliar with fire doors, assuming they were FD30 rated. I just wanted to ensure, before I report back to the housing authority concerned, that 15mm seals on FD60 doors wasn't some legacy standard. Thank you as always.

I've just inspected a batch of FD60 fire doors in a large block of flats, each of which has been retrofitted with a single 15mm intumescent fire and smoke seal. As far as I'm aware, unless otherwise stated on the fire certificate or if a certificate cannot be identified, FD60 default intumescent seal configurations should comprise either a single 20mm or 2 x 15mm. Does anyone know if historically, a single 15mm intumescent seal was ever acceptable on an FD60 doorset and if so, when did this change? Thanks in advance.

Unlatched fire doors are obviously solely reliant on the self-closing device to provide an opening resistance which in turn, maintains the leaf securely against the frame stops in a fire situation. However, I cannot find any reference as to what this minimum force should be. Is there a guideline minimum opening resistance and how should this be measured? In more extreme cases, it's generally easy to spot such defects (e.g. communal fire doors opened by draughts) but there must surely be a more scientific method to identify potentially dangerous unlatched fire doors which may not exhibit such obvious failure symptoms? Thanks in advance.

Thank you Neil. That's incredibly helpful and sincerely appreciated.

BS 1154 states that a self-closing device "shall be capable of closing the test door from any angle to which it may be opened". Does this literally mean the door should self-close when released with the leaf resting on the latch or is there an assumption that in practice, doors are more typically released from a wider angle i.e. after someone or something has passed through them? This obviously makes a difference given the momentum of the door leaf is an important factor during the closing cycle. Particularly interested to hear a fire door inspector's view on this. Thanks to all responders in advance.

Thanks Tony! That aligns with my thinking exactly. I see so many of these issues that I start to doubt my own judgement and thus it's good to reaffirm with fellow assessors now and again!

How do people generally regard the translucent, adhesive escape signs that are commonly found on emergency luminaires? I frequently recommend that these are removed (and replaced with a standard sign in lieu) if the luminaire(s) concerned constitute the only maintained or non-maintained emergency light fittings, given that they reduce the emitted light and thus may compromise the intended lux levels. Where they've been used as a cheaper alternative to a dedicated illuminated sign, then I'm generally happy with this providing there's another emergency light source in the same vicinity. Do people here generally concur with this view? Interested to hear other views and opinions. Thanks sincerely in advance.