When you fire risk assessors are reviewing a workshop with a roller shutter door, large enough for fork lift truck access and more, which is open 95% of the day. Do you consider this is a valid fire exit route? Say the door can still be opened manually with a chain in under 60 seconds the other 5% of the time (so no power outage issues). The reason I ask is that I have seen one such door with an additional door in the middle for a final exit door for a fire exit route and it has made me wonder. At another place, there is a door as above, but a separate fire exit door opposite. If they can not be defined as a final exit door on a fire exit route, why not? It seems to me the employees would take the easiest and quickest route out of the building. I know we should segregate people and vehicles but there would be little no chance of a FLT coming into a building when the alarm is going off, especially as the person that drives the FLT would be the one who would need to get out , when not driving. Visibility from inside out and outside in is actually around 100%, so you would see anything coming. What would be the thoughts of fire risk assessors on this ? Chris

roller shutter doors can jam more easily than an normal door

No was my first thought. I was in conversation with a local manager and I think they wanted to block off one of the exits and testing the ground. We then had a discussion about roller doors as I said we needed the door to maintain the angles for escape routes. Nothing went any further than this conversation, other than me wondering about it (and if I was being too pedantic - it has been known). Yes I always consider that these doors should have a simple single action device to open. Good point about these doors becoming jammed. It took me a while last year to convince people that they can not have fire doors padlocked during the day, when people were there. Yes really, apparently they had people break in during the day in the past. (Buy better doors came to mind) Glad to say this practice stopped, and not restarted. Small victories and all that. I think the issue around roller doors could still become a bone of contention at some point. Think I may pay for myself to do a Fire course some time (hopefully the training will cover such issues as this). I have told the company I work for I have no particular training regarding fire (but questions do come up from time to time). Thanks for the input. Chris