Posted By John Holland1
Are intumescent seals required on existing fire resisting doors? Building regulations part B are a little vague and the regulatory fire reform guidance states that they are normally fitted. Can anyone give me some definitive advice.

Regards

John

Posted By Nigel Souster
Sorry John,

I meant aslo to say that our fire doors are all original from when the building was built. Some of our doors had strips, some didn't.

Posted By Descarte
What I have found: Building regs (Scotland)2.1.14

Where greater differential movement is anticipated, either in normal use or
during fire exposure, the use of a proprietary sealant or sealing system can
be used for fire-stopping of service openings and ventilating ducts. The
products should be tested to demonstrated their ability to maintain the appropriate fire resistance under the conditions appropriate to their end use.
To prevent displacement, materials used for fire-stopping should be
reinforced with, or supported by, non-combustible materials where the
unsupported span is more than 100 mm and where non-rigid materials are
used, unless they have been shown by test within their field of application to
be satisfactory.

FDAC Factcard 5 -

Fire doors play a crucial role in restricting the spread of fire and smoke. If a door is to work effectively in its
normal role the door leaf must be free to move within the frame, and in order to achieve this there must
be a gap around the perimeter. If the gap is too wide, it may compromise the door’s ability to restrict the
spread of fire and smoke.

Intumescent materials and smoke seals play a major role in restricting fire and smoke spread, and hence
reducing incidences of death and injury and reducing property damage.

The Building Regulations indicate where you need fire doors and that these would need intumescent seals.
But they also indicate those situations where a fire door may also have to prevent smoke leakage, and in
those situations a smoke seal must be fitted. You can buy intumescent seals that combine a smoke seal or
you can fit two separate seals - a fire seal and a separate smoke seal. Fire doors are designated by their
required period of fire resistance; FD30, FD60, FD90 and FD120.

The gap between the door leaf and the frame must be
suitable for the intumescent seal fitted. In general, the gap
should not exceed 3mm. To facilitate the checking of this
gap on site, the BWF-CERTIFIRE Fire Door & Doorset
Scheme has produced a gap tester which can be used for
this purpose.
The bwfgaptester is available free of charge from the BWF.

Both documents are available to download for free I recommend reading the FDAC Factcard in full here:

http://www.bwf.org.uk/CE...Fact%20Card%20No%205.pdf

Posted By John Holland1
The reason that I am asking is following a risk assessment. The building was constructed in 1987 and has in recent years been given a fire certificate. The response from Descarte re: FDAC Factcard 5 - "The Building Regulations indicate where you need fire doors and that these would need intumescent seals" doesn't appear in the regulatory fire reform guidance or the regulations. I would be more inclined to be persuaded by article 17 (1). Thanks anyway for the responses so far.

Regards
John