AnthonyB

Can you readily follow signs such that you will pass through every door, go up or down a stair as appropriate and change direction where not obvious? If so you are fine. Too much signage can be detrimental as they can overload viewers . It all seems a bit excessive, but is a side effect of using a Health & Safety specialist to manage fire safety which is it's own discipline.

No they don't and the OP isn't taking about signs into the building for the fire service or floor signs, etc but standard fire exit signs

They aren't offering to sell you those signs by any chance? Some of it is OTT! How small is the building and is there only 1 exit route? You current set up does sound in line with the risk assessment guidance, which is the legal benchmark.

The way the law has been drafted as it comprises 2 or more dwellings then the external wall needs assessing as part of an FRA but not really much else, although some will interpret this as only applying if there are internal common areas as well - but the law isn't worded way

In the first instance it would be you as it is your undertaking that produces the fire risk to relevant persons elsewhere in the building. However sometimes the landlord does it as they are the one with control over the overall building. You could argue that it should have been done by them before you moved in as they should have ensured the premises were compliant - regardless of the tenant's business and fit out with residential above commercial if there is insufficient fire separation there should be an alarm going back to at least 2006

Low pressure (100psi, so standard airline or compressor can be used) stainless steel water extinguishers with built in Schrader valve used to be very common before 2000 with UK made Chubb or US made Badger & Amerex models being around in volume. The post 1997 move to the trade becoming disposable coupled with the 'bin it if not red' purge of 97-99 (when we moved away from fully colour coded bodies) means hardly any are left about and with the move to cheap Chinese extinguishers they are not readily obtainable new. I have a small stock as I deliberately went out of my way to save them whenever I came across them and do sell some of them off from time to time as I have more than enough for my own needs. As a lot of perfectly good extinguishers are scrapped at 5 years as hardly anyone discharge tests and refills these days many trainers will buy these surplus water and CO2 extinguishers from service companies at a far reduced price for single use. I have loads available for trainers to buy, as it seems a waste to scrap full extinguishers. If you do enough volume of training then buying a stock of new stainless steel waters, new CO2 and the head cap bars, filling adapters & Nitrogen kit ends up cheaper in the long run

If you don't know what to use, perhaps an accredited passive fire protection specialist should be involved. The cheap & nasty aerosol fire foams usually have really narrow test scope, usually limited linear gaps between floors and walls, or walls and door frames and no type of service penetration. Proper non aerosol foaming products exist that can do service penetrations and very large gaps but require correct application & equipment (& cost far more). If in doubt as to the choice of systems (often there is more than one option) then this is very useful - https://firestop.hilti.com/selector

You will find better guidance on doors in here - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/making-your-small-block-of-flats-safe-from-fire/a-guide-to-making-your-small-block-of-flats-safe-from-fire-accessible It's not up to the fire door inspector to specify what must be done but report on the status of the doors so the fire risk assessor can determine if they are to the required standard - which in some small blocks could be doors with no seals at all. However, it's quite clear that these doors did not meet the standard (FD30S smoke sealed, they sound like they meet the basic FD30 standard as larger threshold gaps are allowed) they should have done at the time so some remedial measures are likely to be required by the FRA (but not necessarily)- but not new doors and frames, just changing the intumescent strips to combined intumescent & smoke seals and reducing the threshold gap by bottom lipping or threshold seals.

If the services doors are smaller and lighter than the standard size door it's feasible they may only need 2 hinges. Threshold, side and top edge gap ranges have not changed much in that time - remediation measures lesser than frame & door replacement do exist. Hopefully the forum's fire door specialist will answer at some point - we all run our own fire safety businesses so help out on here as and when we can.

The 60 comes from the crush, blockage and resultant multiple fatality risk, which has led to many deaths over history, where the door has pushed shut against the flow of people trapping them. All relevant doors (serving the public) would need to open outwards as regardless of any signage in a real fire all the customers would head for the entrances they came in by. If you want to see this is action watch the raw Station Nightclub fire footage where inward opening main doors were a significant part of how 100 people died in under 90 seconds, trapped by a crush against the inward opening door - their bodies literally pile up in the doorway. Securing the doors in the open positions when open to the public is an option

No, if it's the same Council I'm thinking of they lost a First Tier Tribunal over it, get your own one done after all that area isn't legally under their control to assess it's yours to manage. Th situation I dealt with was identical and other than a bit of remedial work to the front doors off the shared lobby nothing more was required as the three flats had the right fire resistance in accordance with current Government FRA standards and the tiny lobby required absolutely nothing at all. The situation in this case was worsened as being just a hallways there was no communal electricity supply for all this and thus there was a further 4- 5 figures worth of work proposed to get the Electricity Distribution Network Operator to put in a new supply and meter for 'communal' services (the alarm & EL). There is a slight chance this is all needed but unlikely (after all if there were issues they should have addressed them when they owned the whole site and were responsible for paying)

Without seeing the site and layout it's difficult to be definitive, but usually doors to protect means of escape require to be smoke dampers so heat activated fire dampers would not operate quickly enough to protect the route and combined smoke/heat dampers activated by smoke detection would commonly be required unless there is some form of smoke control feature negating it (e.g. pressure differential system)

Shouldn't be needed on stay put, wouldn't be mandatory on the simultaneous and the FRA should guide this - depending on the premises and occupancy type it may be advantageous but only if the AFA Policy of the fire service is appropriate or it would be money for nothing if they won't attend.

This is a property & land law issue & not one for which this forum can answer. All I can say from my experience is that not all easements, deeds of variations and licenses for access for escape are permanent and some can be invalidated in various ways (e.g. one named party sells up) so you need expert sector specific advice

Have you looked at these? https://envirograf.com/product/ecu-fire-protection-system/

It's not a legal requirement in England, also you would need to check your fire service's automatic fire alarm policy - whilst some would attend an 'alarm sounding' call from a remote monitoring system, others would not and would require confirmation of fire first. One assumes these are simultaneous evac blocks with systems in common areas and flats otherwise the fire alarm isn't even required (just detection to open smoke vents). A lot of blocks are spending leaseholders money on unnecessary fire alarms and unnecessary fire door replacements!

Why did your professional FRA not give you the category of system required? It's not really very good to just say "you need a BS5839-1 fire alarm system" they should if competent be giving you more than that. A small to medium place of assembly only requires manual call points (Category M) to final exits and high risk areas unless there is an aspect of the layout requiring specific detection (e.g. for an inner room situation) making it Category M/L5. The healthcare usage could in theory bump it up to Category L3 (detection to escape corridors, routes and any room opening into it other than toilets) but it's ancillary to the main usage so a pragmatic approach could be possible. If you want property protection then you'd need lots more detection (such as any room where there is a fire risk, but not necessarily escape routes) and remote monitoring of the system (M/P2 when also including call points and sounders) You may need more sounders as you need to achieve a minimum sound pressure level throughout the building (65dB, with some specific areas 60dB). You may also require Visual Alarm Devices depending on the usage of the premises, which your FRA should have told you. Zoning doesn't work the way you think, leave that to the designer, if small enough the whole building could in theory be one zone, especially if Category M. Your plan isn't showing or I could give some better advice by marking on it. Cheapest option that should comply if nothing unusual is present is to keep your intruder alarm linked smokes for property protection out of hours and a Category M fire alarm system to meet the minimum legal requirement for the premises.

Yes in theory if the gaps are within the maximum tolerance by Frame Fit and the door set is one tested as suitable by them. This could affect certification, although it's already out of that if the gaps are in excess of those allowed by the door manufacturer.

No. The commercial FRA should consider the effect of a fire there on other relevant persons (flat above) but the flat does not require an FRA as it is a single private dwelling in a block of one.

If you can list some of the 'fail' points specifically we can help with pointers - some requirements have been around decades, others less so.

Our resident fire door expert will be along to assist, but your doors do not have to be to current standards as a matter of course and a decent fire door inspector with the right skills, knowledge and competency would be able to give an opinion for your risk assessor to consider - there are too many 'zero to hero' inspectors only trained in new doors, with the result loads of unnecessary door replacements have occurred. It's an unusual set up though - I usually only see metal doors in metal frames and they don't need intumescent strips, just smoke seals if an 'S' door (which they should be)

If it's a single private dwelling not being rented as a HMO just an AST then unless carrying out changes to the premises that would be subject to Building Regulations you don't retrospectively have to do anything if it is in it's original form except where specific legislation requires it (e.g. smoke & CO alarms, EICR & Gas Safe related safety issues)

Usually yes, covering the common parts of the HMO- see for practical guidance https://www.cieh.org/media/1244/guidance-on-fire-safety-provisions-for-certain-types-of-existing-housing.pdf

The thing is you can get the FRA done by someone else and they will disagree and support maintaining the status quo! Your common system would be a Grade D smoke alarm in the common hall wirelessly linked to Grade D heat alarms in the flat hallways close to the bedroom doors. It would not link to each flats existing smoke alarms. This is to avoid the alarms being disabled or ignored by false alarms that would affect the whole building (a very common problem with simultaneous evacuation flat blocks). This doesn't mean you aren't allowed to link the whole lot, but be aware of the potential pitfalls of this!

I'd be minded not to make the original provision worse by keeping fire doors to the internal stair, but if the deck flats have two directions of escape would be less bothered about these - difficult to be definitive without seeing them