Posted By Pete Longworth
Just a quick question.

Are intumescent strips in fire doors in an office building an absolute requirement or are they just recommended?

Posted By Julian Wilkinson
Had a quick look in the Building Regs with regards to construction of fire doors and found these referrals to various acops and BS:

BS 8214 ACOP for fire door assemblies with non-metallic leaves

Timber fire-resisting doorsets: 'maintaining performance under the new EU test standard'. published by TRADA (Timber Research and Development Association)

Guidance for metal doors in given in ACOP for 'fire resisting metal doorsets' published by DSMA (door and shutter manufacturers' association)

Posted By pluto
Shaun is, as usual, pretty much on the ball. I would add this though.
Assuming that your risk assessment finds that you do need fire doors to protect the escape routes or whatever, then you need to provide doors that the enforcing authority can validate or have some confidence in as suitable. This is done by 99% of people by having doors certified by a BS. Most doors and doorsets will not pass the BS test without the intumescent strips.
If you leave these out the onus is squarely on you to PROVE that you have done enough. What are you going to do...pay several hundred thousand pounds to set up your own accredited test rig?
Everyone knocks British Standards but their beauty is you can buy something accredited and virtually walk away.

My first question to you as you display your door without seals is "show me some proof that it will work"

Posted By Pete Longworth
Pretty much as I thought really. The reason I ask is because we recently had a visit from the local fire authority who commented that some of our fire doors had strips and others didn't. We are in an old building which we will be leaving in a few months for newer premises. However we have come up with an action plan to upgrade the doors over a period of 3 months.