Finger Guards

[NickT]

I have not been able to find a plastic finger guard supplier that is able to provide satisfactory fire certification to confirm that they have been tested for use with fire rated timber doors.

Does anyone know of a supplier that can provide fire certification? 

[Neil Ashdown MAFDI]

If the finger guard manufacturer cannot provide this, it is likely that the reason is that in the event of a fire they would burn quickly and fall away from the door assembly.  Thus not affecting the fire integrity performance of the door when these are fitted to the fire risk side.

On the non-fire risk side, the inherent insulating characteristics of the timber door should mean that the plastic-based finger guards will not be affected. 

[NickT]

Thankyou Neil

Much as I thought

I have spoken to a few suppliers / manufactures of the last few days, none of whom have any fire certification of their own.

As you say their general consensus is that these finger guards are a face fixed item they do not directly effect the performance of the door set in a fire.

A timber fire door can typically be full faced with up to 2mm thick PVC faces without issue so adding a face fixed PVC type of finger guard could be expected to pose not issue,

Aluminium finger guards and the type that also contain fabric pull out shields, are also untested by the manufacture with the exception of one manufacturer.

I have found no PVC fingerguard supplier that can provide suitable fire certification, the product are just not tested at the moment, for the reasons mentioned above. Although some have tested them to demonstrate that they do not flame continuously.

I am only aware of one fire door manufacturer, Forza doors, who have taken it upon themselves to test finger guards, they have tested the aluminium type with pull out fabric shields, from what I can see this testing is independent of the manufacturers of the finger guards so the only way to access this certification will be through Forza and their door sets as a whole package.

The only other fully certified finger guard again alumimium with fabric guards, that I was able to identify was the Anther range, NR25, NR30 & NR38 which have been tested by the manufacturer so are suitable to use with any fire rated timber door up to 60mins.

For fully undisputable compliance either supply Forza door sets with the tested finger guards covered by their fire certification OR fit Anther finger guards to 3^rd party approved door sets.

At this time it is still acceptable to fit other types of finger guards as the industry still considers these to be a face fixed item that do not need to be separately tested. But you will not have any documentation to back this up.

[Neil Ashdown MAFDI]

Interesting. Thank you for posting  🙂