Fire Doors within Glass Partition Walls

[Guest Lianne]

Hi there, does anyone have any guidance for doors that are within a glass partition? We have two small kitchens in our office building where the wall with the entrance doors on are glass with integral blinds. The doors are just regular office doors with a small strip window, NOT fire doors.

Our Fire Risk assessment highlighted these doors as needing combined intumescent strips/cold smoke seals and self- closing devices. On further discussion with the company, where I pointed out that the walls were NOT fire-rated glass, they agreed the intumescent strips/smoke seals were not required but still said we needed self-closing devices.

Can anyone offer any information either supporting or not for this? In my opinion the walls would not hold up to any fire and it is therefore pretty pointless putting self-closing devices on them as that is likely to be the only thing left standing in the event of fire!

Is our assessment correct or is this just money for old rope?!

TIA

[Mike North]

The question is what is in the kitchen, if it has an open element (such as a toaster) in it then it needs have a fire door, if not then there is no need for a closer.  If it needs a closer, then the glazing would also need to be fire rated not just toughened along with the walls.

I would get the assessor back and ask them to justify there recommendations

[Lianne1TS]

3 minutes ago, Mike North said:

The question is what is in the kitchen, if it has an open element (such as a toaster) in it then it needs have a fire door, if not then there is no need for a closer.  If it needs a closer, then the glazing would also need to be fire rated not just toughened along with the walls.

I would get the assessor back and ask them to justify there recommendations

Hi Mike, thank you so much for your response. There is a toaster in one of the kitchens, as well as a george foreman type grill, microwave, kettle etc. Based on that, am I correct that we either need a Fire Door AND fire-rated walls OR to get rid of the toaster and keep our standard door and walls?

Will definitely be going back to them armed with this new knowledge!

[Mike North]

What an assessor usually picks up on is an open element. 

If it has a toaster its cooking, if not its snack preparation and reheat, microwaves rice cookers and foreman grills don’t have an open element. 

That’s why we are very careful about room descriptions, it can set hares running.

It is pointless putting a fire door in places if the fire can simply go over or around the door.

Looking at the door it looks like a rated door blank, there should be some text on the head of the door which will tell you