Remove internal fire door

[Guest nick]

Good afternoon,

in our house, a semi-detached, we are thinking to remove an internal door between the corridor and the sitting room to have more space. Such door is a fire door; can it be removed without problems? which are the regulations?

Regards,

Nick

[Tom Sutton]

According to Approved Document B (fire safety) volume 1: Dwellinghouses section 2 it could be argued that your proposals are acceptable providing you have escape windows in all habitable rooms. But I would consider it foolhardy, because the best means of escape, upstairs, from fire, in a semi detached house is out of the bedroom, into the staircase enclosure down the stairs and out of the front door, also it could be available for a reasonable length of time. Having to use escape windows is a last resort and with your proposals within the first minutes of a fire in the sitting room ( high risk) the staircase would be lost and the escape windows the only way. Consider your option carefully.

[Guest nick]

Hi,

thanks for the reply.  I was a bit unclear, the door is at the ground floor dividing the corridor to a sitting room, nearby there is the front door the sitting room window and stairs. I'm not into building my first though would be that removing the door a fire that start in the sitting room would propagate easier up the stairs.

From what I understand these are FD certified timber internal door without a self closing mechanism and we don't usually keep them closed.

Thanks for the support

 

Nick

[Tom Sutton]

The doors opening onto the staircase enclosure should be FD20 doors and a substantial well fitting standard door should achieve that standard. It is considered the head of the household with concern for his/her family will ensure all doors are closed at bedtime so ADB does not require automatic self-closers and therefore there will be a adequate means of escape from all habitable rooms using the staircase enclosure to the front door. During the waking hours the risk is less and everybody should be aware if there is a fire on the premises.