1930s-40s Building and Boiler room fire doors

[Mirek2020]

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 original wire mesh doors for the boiler room but upgrade the lobby/stairwell doors to FD60S type?

- or do we have to upgrade the boiler room doors to FD60S type also? This would affect air flow requirements for the gas boilers by the way.

-  the boiler room has also two lantern roof structures along one wall, each around 10m long and 2 m wide with louvered walls.

We are pressured by our fire safety inspector into upgrading all the doors to FD60 type but I believe we are entitled to some concessions due to the age of the building.

Please share your thoughts on the limitations and necessities concerning the above,

Thank you very much for your time,

MO

[AnthonyB]

As long as you are enclosing the area of special fire risk and maintaining protection of the stair you should be OK - unless the layout of the building requires lobby protection to the stair then your version of remedial actions does sound sufficient.

[Mirek2020]

Thank you. We will discuss this issue with our fire safety inspectors. Thank you again.