Rim night latches on nominal fire doors

[burntbacon]

Hi All, 

I just had a question about some of the night latches now on the market which seem to indicate they have been tested for FD30/60 doors. Two manufacturers that spring to mind are Arrone and Eurospec. When looking into the evidence for these claims I always find that the evidence isn't very robust as far as suitability for a door assembly. With no specific test evidence or even instructions for fitting to a fire door. No mention of a requirement for intumescent etc. 

Personally I would never install a night latch on a modern certified door assembly as there are simply much better products to be used.

However when trying to do the best possible with a nominal fire door already fitted with a Yale branded night latch. Should these locks be considered when replacement is required or is there no benefit? All of these doors currently have certified self closing devices.

I'm not aware of any of these style night latches having any markings either. CE/ UKCA. 

I heard from an architectural ironmongerer recently that surface mounted hardware doesn't need a fire rating (this was in relation to coded locks). Is this the reason we don't have a robustly tested night latch as it's surface mounted. I feel the testing may be more to do with the cylinder and the way its fitted through the door rather than the night latch lock body on the back of the door.

I'm keen to hear thoughts as this is an issue I come across a lot.

 

 

 

[Neil Ashdown MAFDI]

Yes, I agree its an issue for me too.

I have some evidence of fire resistance performance for a cylinder rim night latch and it refers to fire resistance performance tests.  In terms of compatibility, I would only install one where I can be certain the type of door is covered by the available test evidence including intumescent protection and location of the device. Even then I wouldn't recommend one due to issues with the self-closer often failing to overcome the resistance from the latch strike.