I have recently carried out FRA's for a care home group, the majority of their homes have dorgard devises on fire doors that lead to the critical escape routes. I advised them to remove them and replace with a more failsafe system wired to the alarm. The service uses have learning difficulties but most are fully mobile. Now they're questioning this as dorgards are freely available to buy and any replacement wired to the alarm would be extremely expensive. I believe these devises are not 100% failsafe as batteries never get replaced on time as these things are the least priority in a busy care home. Is there another alternative available or do you guys think I'm right? I want to give the best advise to my client but I always look at the worst scenario .

Hi Lee

 

The standard version of the Dorgard should not be used between corridors and staircases but is acceptable between rooms and corridors. The Dorgard goes into a failsafe mode if the battery is low and cannot be set again til the battery is replaced, so no risk there.

There is now the Dorgard Pro which allows direct link to fire alarm system as well.

Harry

Further to what Harry has said, you need to study BS 7273 part 4 and find out what the category of actuation, of the installed device is and then check out appendix A of the BS 7273 part 4.