A critical element of safety in buildings is the provision of sufficient fire exits with fire doors of the appropriate design. However, although fire door manufacturers subject their products to stringent testing, there is no obligatory means of ensuring that performance will not be compromised at the installation stage. Fortunately, few fire doors are ever put to the test in reality – but is that good enough?
BM TRADA Certification thinks not, hence the launch of its Q-Mark Scheme for fire door installers last year. Three companies have already gained full membership and there is a long list of provisional members from around the UK and Ireland working towards full membership.
Fire doors are often very sophisticated products, but even the simplest can rarely tolerate error in installation, as Simon Beer, product certification manager with BM TRADA commented. “If a window is poorly installed it will soon become obvious when the rain leaks in or the sealed unit fails. If fire doors are badly installed, one hour’s fire resistance could easily be reduced to less than 10 minutes, but you probably won’t know until the worst happens.”
Variety of regulations
There are, of course, a wide variety of regulations and Acts that require fire resistant doorsets to be manufactured and installed. In England and Wales Approved Document B covers fire safety in new buildings and modifications to existing buildings, in Scotland it is Technical Standard D, in Northern Ireland Technical Booklet E and in the Irish Republic Technical Guidance Document B. Approved Document B will soon include a ‘European Supplement’ to cover new European test standards, including those relating to fire doors and shutter assemblies (BS EN 1634-1).
Another important piece of legislation is the Fire Precautions Act 1971 – which relates to life safety only, not property protection. Under the Act, the fire brigade has inspection duties and will issue a Fire Certificate which defines where fire resisting walls and floors are required.
And since December 1999 most business premises have been covered by the Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations 1997 .
All of these documents require properly tested fire doors to be installed, but their installation is unlikely to be rigorously inspected at any stage.
The Q-Mark scheme gives independent, third-party certification that its members are doing their job correctly.
Training companies
A key element of the scheme is training – companies will nominate one or more members of their installation team to undergo the training course and take a written exam. It is the nominated employee who will become registered under the scheme.
The registered installer’s work will be audited on site twice a year. This means that BM TRADA will inspect installations at members’ customers’ premises.
Chris Moore of Swift Southern said his company had become full members of the scheme “to prove our competence as installers to our clients”. In fact, the Q-Mark for installation has become a requirement of one of Swift’s major clients.
After installation, fire doors may be moved if a building is partitioned or its function changes. The manual supplied by Swift Southern will enable them to go straight back to the installer or even the manufacturer for adaptations, to ensure that performance is not impaired.
BM TRADA has developed four categories of members across the Q-Mark fire door manufacturer and installer scheme :
- door blank supplier
- door/set manufacturer
- fabricator (must use Q-Mark approved door blanks)
- installer
A series of colour-coded plugs denotes the status of the fire doors and a unique identification number pinpoints the manufacturer or installer.
