Do you want to buy a fire door but would like to know about its benefits? This article will guide you through all you need to know about fire doors.
A fired door is an integral part of a building fireproofing plan during construction. In most cases, they have used any form of fire compartmentation. It is a building process where physical barriers are laid in specific areas in the building to prevent the spread of smoke and fire in case of a fire emergency. In this article, we are going to look at several aspects such as why and when they are required by law, the degree of protection they offer, and the materials used to make them.
An Overview About Fire Doors
The fire door is the fire-resisting door that provides passive protection to reduce the spread of fire and smoke in a fire accident. In North America, they are used alongside fire dampers often referred to as closure that can act as a guard against fire. According to the European standards and regulations for fire door requirements, doors must be reinforced with resisting fire door sets to prevent the spread of fire in case of a related accident. When making fire doors, they must be reinforced with resistant features like door hardware and frames. That is the requirement needed to fully comply with the regulations regarding fire doors.
The Basics of Fire Door Assemblies
The following are some of the main materials used to make fire doors:
- Glass
- Steel
- Aluminum
- Timber
- Gypsum
- Vermiculite
Labeled fire door materials are readily available and have been in abundance for years. They are commonly used in the United States of America and Canada. They are assembled using complex systems featuring certified material that when combined provide a certain level of protection against fire. Mostly, fire doors act as closures that reduce damage to rooms such as hotels or classrooms to prevent the spread of fire to other rooms. That prevents the level of damage that would have been caused if the whole building were to disintegrate. Let’s look at some of the fire door building codes and assemblies.
Essentials Of Fire Doors
The main materials used to construct fire doors are wood and steel. However, some manufacturers use fully glazed doors and fiberglass with the ability to resist fires or cracking due to abrupt contraction and expansion with alternating low and high temperatures. A good fire-door must have a positive latching system. Moreover, the openings must have installations specifically designed for closing the door such as spring hinges or a hydraulic arm-type closer. Other common materials used for making fire doors include glazing, fusible linked louvers, gaskets, door buttons, and seals. Making fire doors requires many essential materials beyond stainless steel leaf hinges or steel. All the components must be labeled and mounted on the right side of the door to bring out the fireproofing mechanism. Moreover, they must be marked with the county’s standards to prove they are effective.
Products bearing certification made according to the building codes are what one must look for when shopping for fire doors. The best codes for fire doors are the National Building Code of Canada for Canada and any related regions, the International Building Code (IBC), and NFPA 101. Installation of fire doors is only governed by the NFPA 80 the most basic standards for opening protectives and fire doors. Testing the fire doors is in absolute accordance with the work of the ANSI/UL 10C, the Standard for Positive Pressure Fire Tests of Door Assemblies for all the swung and hinged doors.
Swinging doors have fire ratings of twenty minutes, three-quarters of an hour, one hour, one and a half an hour, and three hours. These ratings replaced the earlier rating systems that ranged from A to E and several label phrases such as the fire door for opening in a vertical shaft.
Door hardware like the mortise locks and bored locks, continuous hinges, and fire exit hardware is stated similarly. However, in some doors hardware, the levels are sometimes invisible after installation of the lock so the UL needs the stamp from the companies to mark the UL marks and letter its F on the handle, faceplate, or any other surface.
Frames might lack the sire rating stamp but it mostly depends on the company that manufactured it. When there is no hourly rating on the fire door, the rating will automatically be assumed or range from one and half hours to three hours during construction.
Fire Door Hardware
It is a broad term in fire doors but it mostly entails the doorframe and the door leaf. It may also include the protection plates and the door position switches. All the fire door hardware must be rated by various standard rating facilities to use different words for different degrees of protection. When there is no rating, it is assumed to be a three-hour rating standard. If the fire door product faces any limitations, then the UL certification of the product IQ tool must provide information about the limitations. These limitations might be the fire door width, low fire-resistance rating, height, and durability. If the fire door doesn’t have any limitations, then that means it is a three-hour rating and it can be used for an eight feet long and four feet thick wide fire door during construction. This concept extends to the locks, fire exits, and several fire door hardware types.
Working With Fire Doors
Fire doors are strictly regulated by the language in the NFPA 80 and the IBC. These codes need the fire door to be labeled according to the standard requirements. According to the UL certification, it is prohibited to apply the movement of UL certification stamps in the field without prior supervision and inspection from certified personnel.
Conclusion
A fire door is a fire-resisting door that provides passive protection to reduce the spread of fire and smoke in a fire accident. In most cases, they have used a form of fire compartmentation. It is a building process where physical barriers are laid in specific areas in the building to prevent the spread of smoke and fire in case of a fire emergency.
