Fire strategy in most buildings rests on compartmentation: the assumption that a fire starting in one area stays there long enough for everybody to leave and for the fire service to arrive. That assumption is carried almost entirely by doors — and a fire door only performs when it is shut.
Why they end up open
Nobody wedges a fire door out of indifference. They do it because the door is heavy and someone is carrying boxes, because a corridor is unbearably hot with it closed, because a self-closer was adjusted until the door stopped slamming and now does not latch. Every propped door is a symptom of a building working against the people in it, and treating it as a discipline problem fixes nothing.
What makes a fire door fail besides being open
- Gaps. A nominal three millimetres around the leaf. A door that has dropped on its hinges or been trimmed to clear new flooring no longer seals.
- Missing or painted intumescent strips. The strip expands to close the gap in a fire. Coats of paint stop it doing that.
- Penetrations. A hole drilled for a cable or a lock change, never made good.
- Hardware. Self-closers disconnected or wound down, hinges missing screws, latches that do not engage, and hold-open devices not linked to the alarm.
- Glazing and signage. Replacement glass that is not fire-rated, and doors with no indication of what they are, so nobody knows which door matters.
The ones most often wrong
Plant rooms, electrical switch rooms, generator rooms and store cupboards. They are the rooms where a fire is most likely to begin and the rooms whose doors are most often held open for ventilation or convenience — frequently the same door, held open for the same reason.
A survey, not an opinion
Fire doors need recording individually: location, rating, gap measurements, seal condition, hardware function and a defect list with owners. Done once it is a snapshot; done on an interval it is evidence, and evidence is what an insurer asks for after a loss. If a door is propped open every day, the finding is not the wedge. It is the reason the wedge is there.
When Were Your Fire Doors Last Surveyed Individually?
We assess fire protection as an installed system — compartmentation, doors, detection and suppression — and report findings ranked by severity with the corrective action for each.
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