Hello,

I need to confirm some information I have read regarding fire doors in blocks of high rise flats and was hoping you could get back to me as soon as possible please. Could you please confirm if all fire doors/front doors to individual flats have to have a self closing device to make sure these fire doors shut to prevent fire from spreading and, if so, what that rule is and where I can find this, when this rule came into being and what are the possible repercussions? Also, do the internal doors of the flat need to have fire doors and if so, where, when this rule came into being, etc? Have all fire doors got to have the product/fire door code on the top of the fire door permanently so it can be checked and if this is ripped off the fire door by the installers/someone does that break any building regulations/fire standards? Many thanks for your time.

Neil

The history of the regulations is contained here:

https://www.local.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/fire-safety-purpose-built-04b.pdf

Basically front doors being fire doors stems from around 1962 onwards. Internal fire doors are similar, although the exact doors changes over the years.

Fire doors are ideally third party certified and marked with either top labels or side fitted plugs (depending upon which scheme they are approved under) but it isn't mandatory and of course many doors were installed before these schemes existed. Lack of labelling can complicate matters but does not cause the door to fail.