Fire Doors

[Guest Paul edinburgh]

I am hoping that you can assist.

I am a building manager in a commercial property, which was constructed in 2003.

The building had FD60 fire doors installed at the time of constrution, which complied with all the then regulations.

Site recently had a fire door survey carried out, and the report stated that all the fire doors should be replaced to the current regulations.

My question is, as the fire doors were compliant in 2003, is there a legal requirement to replace all the doors, to current regulations?

[Neil ashdown]

Is the fire door inspector referring to building regulations or the British Standard?  Both have been updated since 2003.  Ask the fire door inspector to provide details about the non-compliance issues, why they are non-compliant and to what standard or reference point.

[Mike North]

Building regulations are not retrospective.  If the inspector has failed the door purely because it is not to the latest standards then he it wrong 

[AnthonyB]

Building Regulations aren't - they still have the statutory bar. The Fire Safety Order removed the statutory bar from fire safety post build. If the shortfall in protection from the old standard and the new is significant enough to be a risk to safety then it is no longer acceptable - this is the cornerstone of risk assessment in determining this.

I do agree that an older specification of doorset can remain acceptable. The door checker should provide enough detail on the deficiencies to allow the risk assessor to determine which need resolution and which can be progressive in the future.

Sadly loads of firms that have done the course and jumped on the fire door inspection bandwagon will inspect every door they see (even if not required to be a fire door) fail them if anything at all is wrong, and then put a 5 or 6 figure quote in to remediate it all. The better ones will actual grade defects allowing a sensible assessment and action plan to be drawn up only doing immediate work where really needed.