Fire Exits

I'm looking for some advice please; I am in the process of purchasing a house with is currently a B&B. It has been granted planning permission to be converted back to a dwelling house when we take occupancy. There is also a guest house attached to the property. Currently both the B&B I am buying, and the guest house next door (attached) have means of escape over a threshold through a small door on the second floor between adjacent rooms. The door is approx. 500/600mm wide and only about 1.5m tall. I visited the guest house today (not the one I'm buying). The landlord is open to having this means of escape permanently blocked up, but I am driving things from …

Can a hotel use a fire door for regular access to pool by residents ?

Could you please advice on the mounting height of the green break glass override device.

My daughter has moved into a student house with four bedrooms. Her ground floor room is accessed through the kitchen and she has a door to the garden, but it will not open. The landlord is not willing to repair the door and says her escape route in case of a fire in the kitchen is through the window in her bedroom. Is this an acceptable fire escape or can she insist that the door is repaired?

Hi, simple exit capacity question... I understand the largest exit must be discounted. In a premises with 2 double exits, can the one remaining 1050mm door allow 200 persons to escape (I may have read somewhere that where there is one exit regardless of width only 60 people but I am unsure if this applies when you start with 2 but discount one). Thank you

Hi, simple exit capacity question... I understand the largest exit must be discounted. In a premises with 2 double exits, can the one remaining 1050mm door allow 200 persons to escape (I may have read somewhere that where there is one exit regardless of width only 60 people but I am unsure if this applies when you start with 2 but discount one). Thank you

I am working on a renovation of a Victorian house which is split into two flats (sketch attached). There is a small entrance lobby shared by the Ground Floor (GF) and First Floor (1F) flats. Both doors to the flats are fire rated with smoke seals. The 1F flat is under 4.5m above ground level and it doesn't have a loft. The GF flat is open plan and each room has a direct escape to the outside via a window. As part of the renovation, the approved inspector is asking us to introduce an internal protected hallway in the GF flat by putting a door is the corridor. Why is this necessary if we already have a protected lobby between the two flats? I had an identical project signe…

Disabled Refuge Points Do these need specific signs to comply with BS 5499 or are the signs on the intercom adequate( wheelchair logo on green backgound)?

Can a fire exit in a supermarket also have a sign on it which says "this area is for staff only? Thanks

Hi, we live in an apartment, bought from our landlord a few years ago. Our kitchen, living space has french patio doors to a small decked platform 6-7feet high above and stairs that exit into our neighbours land. during lockdown we power washed and painted the deck and steps as it was unfit to walk on. We don’t use the deck usually but during lockdown our toddler played out a few times. It is our only means of escape downstairs and our deeds show it was some rickety old steps out to the yard before 2011. It also shows we have a joint right of way down this yard back up to the front which has been blocked and stone stairs completely removed. So in the event of a fire we…

Are there any minimum sizes for fire doors to remain compliant? My kitchen doorway is narrow (670mm) and short (1964mm) Also what overhead door closer would be best for a door of this size? PS. I have found a solid core FD30 blank door that can be trimmed excessively providing it is re-lipped.

Hi, I am in the process of buying a house which has a metal, external fire escape staircase down from an attic floor. Currently this is a single, straight run of steps which terminates pretty close to another wall/door for the garage. (The space is perfectly sufficient for people to get away in real terms but I would be surprised if it would be acceptable for a commercial premises, for example). My irritation is that it prevents effective use of the garage door as you have to sort of slink past the staircase. So, my question is - is there likely to be anything wrong with having a half way landing installed, enabling the staircase to reverse direction and ex…

Hello there. My mother is disabled and on friday had a new fire door installed, the only exit to her flat, but the workmen didn't have a handle. Because the door has an electric/disability mechanism on it to open and close it using a fob, they have clearly felt it was safe to leave it without a handle over the weekend, and however long it takes them to come back and get it done. The issue is that all electronics can fail, or power can go out, and if this happened at the wrong time my mother doesn't even have a handle to try and open her door with. She is effectively trapped should this (even unlikely) eventuality occur, which seems to me a rather concerning lapse on …

Hi. I work in a 4 story building. The bottom floor that I work on has a fire exit that leads out onto a closed stairwell used for the flats above. Outside of our fire door is a small courtyard that has a gate entry code. The floor above us is inhabited by a second home owner that lives there 6 weeks of the year. We have had trouble with him in the past as customers have used the fire exit as en exit to the shop and left the code entry gate open. For the last year I have ensured that we do not let customers use the fire exit door when it is open. Today I have had a massive telling off from him for using the gate, even though I have closed it behind me on exit end re-entry…

Hello all, Please help me understand how best to reconcile the exisitng boiler room arrangments we have and the current fire safety standards: - it is a large private estate with arround 320 flats, upto 8 floors - boiler room is large approx. 200m3, at lower ground level, with two doors - original doors with large free area over 1m2 (wire mesh type) at either end of the room. - each door leads into lower ground, roofless lobby and from the lobby one can enter a service stairwell - this would be the escape route from the boiler room; at present the door between the lobby and the stairwell is not fire rated. Question: - can we maintain the origina…

Hello. I currently live in a student house and we have a fire door from our main corridor into the kitchen. this has had a dart board on it and consequently has a few dart holes in the door itself, we are moving out in 6 days and need to know whether it is worth trying to fix? is it safe to polyfil a fire door ourselves?

In an office building , can fire doors be locked at night when know one is at work or does the fact an exit says fire exit then it must remain day and night? The reason is the building can be accessed 24hr a day by staff from another area , although no one would be working there at night and would have no reason to be in there at night. The fire escape route goes from a corridor , through an office and into a carpark. The door gets locked to the office as security I'm presuming. Once a week at night I check the fire alarm at night. The management say that they can take the signs down but due to travel distances they cannot . Its just the overni…

We have a fire escape window on our upstairs landing and I've just found out my 3 year old twin girls can open the window. As there is no lock or anything on this window, is there anything we can fit to childproof this window without compromising fire safety?

HI there - I know there are a lot of questions about whether a front door needs to be fire rated but I couldn't quite find the answer to this one! I am the ground floor flat in a Victorian Terrace house with one flat above me that is two stories. We both have doors that exit into a shared hallway and then out the front of the house. We are jointly replacing the shared front door (the one that exits outside) and I wondered if this has to be fire rated because it leads to the stairway of the upstairs flat? Thank you! Rachel

Hello - I have a ground floor flat in a victorian terrace which shares a common entrance with the flat above. We are replacing our shared external front door that exits out of the house. Does this external door need to be fire rated? Thank you.

I've just got pulled into a job where the customer told me the job was fitting a door and frame, I asked if it was standard timber door and frame and they said yes. I turn up and find out he has a fd30 for a fire exit door and frame to fit door both are 9inch to heigh, Am I right that it's still not possible to modify the door or frame in any way beyond manufacturing instructions. I have for now re measure brick to brick so he can try to get a set to fit properly. It's in a salon for the rear exit out onto carpark and the old frame and door are so rotten that it needs replacement asap I am clued up for internal work on flats and dom…

Scenario is a new office block - ground plus 4 storey above (no basement). All office / administration use. All standard construction and each floor has lobby approach to staircase. No alternative means of escape from the upper floor levels. Under ADB Vol 2 (3.3 - Single escape stairs) from what I can read, a maximum of 60 occupants is permitted at each floor level subject to travel distance criteria being met and if any floor is above 11m, a second means of escape is made available... But, then looking at 2.9 in ADB Vol 2 (Number of occupants and exits) if the total occupancy for the building is >60 then 2 or more final exits are required... In my example…

Hi I have been notified by our building management; the front door to our rented property (flat in a building) is not a fire safety door because it is a UPVC none rated fire door! My flat’s front door opens to the street, having said, there is also a flat next door but has it’s own front door separately. We both share a common 3 steps metal stairs that leads to the street. I’m not sure if the management is right, do I really need to change my front door and what is best, FD30 or FD60? Many thanks in advance

Can a front door of an office be a fire door

We have a social club with the main entrance doors open in. The doors are on one of only two escape routes. The building has three storeys with a possibility of around 600 persons. Conditions of licence made by LABC say that either the doors are held open or they are manned. Neither condition is likely to be met as the main entrance does not have a lobby and the weather would just pour in. Manning is likely to be by a wee man who gets paid in pints and needs to visit the loo on a regular basis. My FRA rejects the situation as most unwise. Don’t know what you think but FRS didn’t either notice or comment on the arrangement, which I find strange.