It should be remembered that fire-door sets are required to meet a certain standard that is measured in time eg 30 or 60 minutes or higher. Together with this the door may be required to prevent the passage of smoke and the only certain way that this can be measured is to subject the complete package eg fire-door, intumescent fire and smoke seals, hardware and fitting to a fire door test and providing you replicate this in all aspects you can be fairly certain that it will meet that standard - any substitution of any item can seriously downgrade the fire/smoke performance.
The first thing that you need to do is to find out what standard of fire resistance the door set is required to meet and this is usually done by carrying out a Fire Risk Assessment or by reference to any relevant Building Regulations and once this is done you will know what standard is required - do you know if the door-set was installed as a fire-door and the standard that was required? Are there any manufacturers names on the door - are you able to approach the owner/architect or builder that can give you this information?
As you can see there are a number of checks that you need to carry out before you can decide what to do and clearly the first thing you need to establish is - has this type of door been fire tested - are you sure that it is not an ordinary door? The problem with this is that if there is no indication on the door or no available proof you could be wasting your money and putting someones life at risk - are you happy to take that risk and if someone died would you be happy to stand up in court and admit to this?
Next lets assume that you are fairly confident it is a fire door and that you have the relevant proof and have spoken to the manufacturer/supplier and they have given you the information in respect of the frame, intumescent fire and smoke seals, hardware and fitting but it was not tested with self adhesive fire and smoke seals - how do you know that if you fit a non recommended seal that it will still meet the required standard - will the supplier/manufacturer give you a letter confirming that the combination of this door, seals and hardware will meet the required standard?
As I stated previously substituting non approved items in a fire-door set is not an easy task and whilst it can be done it needs to be carried out by someone that is an expert in this field, not usually a carpenter, supplier or firefighter but someone that specialises in this area and will give you the written documentation to prove that it meets the required standard.
