Fire doors - confused need help!

[jimbof]

Hi;

I'm just about to move into my new house, built 1985, layout as follows:

Ground floor
Garage with up and over door (no access to house, window to rear of property), front door to entrance hallway: access to stairs, contract doors to WC and utility room

1st Floor
Landing , Firedoors to bedroom 1 & 2 (although no closers or intumescent strips?). Contract door to bathroom. Firedoor with closer (no intumescent strip) to staircase up to 2nd floor.

2nd Floor
Open plan kitchen / lounge / diner. Velux windows to front / back. Hatch to (small) loft space.

I'm about to replace all the doors with something nicer, and was wondering:

1) Do the bedroom doors actually need to be firedoors? All of the other terraces in the block have an alternative layout (bedrooms on 2nd floor, lounge / kitchen 1st floor - original purchaser asked for the different layout) So I'm thinking the builders had a certain number of fire doors ordered, and just fitted them blindly. I mean, I can get out the window on the 1st floor quite easily, and the 1st floor is protected from the attic by the firedoor to the staircase.

2) If they do need to be fire doors, do they need intumescent strips and a closer?

3) If I want to knock through from the Utility room into the garage, with a small door, what do I need in the way of permissions etc? Does this need to be a fire door? How about locks, do they need to be the same standard as the front door lock? The dividing wall is breezeblock. The floor in the house is at a higher level to the garage (not sure how much). Just want access to my tools etc in the garage without going outside, and thinking of fitting a garage door opener (so alternative access essential).

Thanks for all the help;

james

 

[Nige F]

Try your local fire brigade, they usually offer free advice on smoke detectors, and while they`re doing that................

 

[jimbof]

thanks, they're just round the corner so I'll pop in. Anyone else got an idea in the meantime?

 

[Mr Winston]

1) the fire doors that you have (to the bedrooms and to the third floor open plan living/kitchen area) should be replaced with fire doors (FD30)

2) im not sure what the spec for fire doors was 20 years ago (i think they had 1 inch stops instead of intumescent strips)

I would imagine that they had closers and these were probably removed by one of the previous owners

if it were my place i would replace these doors with FD30 doors with intuemescent strips and closers (and thats what current regulations would ask for if it were new build today)

im not 100% sure on the utility room but as you are trying to protect the staircase so if a fire occurs in there it wont block the staircase for at least 30minutes i would also fit an FD30 here.

toilets and bathrooms are considered as low risk areas for a fire to start hence no fire doors are required under the regs

3) You would need building regs permission to put a doorway to the garage (structural alteration & fire regs)
it needs a FD30 fire door with closer and strip (normal minimum spec for a fire door these days)


you also need the house floor to be higher than the garage floor by 100mm

 

[jimbof]

Thanks for the advice, much appreciated