Fire safety inspection finds lack of letterbox brushes.

Good because they are a complete ba*tard when it comes to leafleting at elections. They must be bad news for postal staff too, in the course of their employment.

Whoops! To finish what I started.

The recent inspection found only one fault with the door itsef, which I can fix. Another problem is the letterbox, which is currently standard across all front doors. The original internal brushes are a requirement and they are missing.

Looking at the other letterboxes the brushes are rigidly fixed internally between two aluminium flaps one outside, one inside.

Ive seen YouTube videos of brushes in a plastic frame that screw onto the inside of the door frame but doing this would impede the inner flap.

Does it look like I'll just have to buy a new letter box?

Very good. I removed mine to reduce the risk of letters being left partially inserted into the box. I would regard identity theft as a greater risk than a fire so far as the front door is concerned.

Effing letterboxes. And the sodding dogs behind them, sometimes.

Was it jgharston who had created some sort of folding device to insert leaflets through letterboxes and release them once inside?

He should have sold them ...

Who needs a folding device....?

Nick

Thank you Mr Odell. We must be cheapskates. We just use a wooden spoon

OK, I'll ask the potentially stupid question. What do letterbox brushes have to do with fire safety?

Presumably they reduce the amount of air that can be sucked in to feed a fire. ... or do they prevent nasty people pouring petrol in?

If it is (and needs to be?) a fire door, then the letterbox is considered part of the door ...

Or it could just be an overzealous service company doing landlord inspection and wanting to dish some maintenance work out to someone?

I have a friend who lives in a council flat. A few months ago the council had workers going around the estate making sure that the council's own flats had letterboxes with brushes and replacing those that didn't.

A very interesting question. The fire safety inspector's report noted the unacceptable state of missing brushes.

That's the top interpretation around these parts.

Mike Halmarack snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Is the door on a flat opening into a common area/stairwell? If so then I can see the validity of the requirement as I'd expect a fire door being required with intumescent strips and smoke control brushes round the perimeter. As stated up thread the brushes could control in/outdraught in a fire and limit smoke transfer to a degree. You might be lucky that they haven't made an intumescent letterbox a requrement. Is there a self closer on the door and does it have the appearance of a fire door (solid construction, wooden not pvc and any glass wired).

It very much is.

All of those things, and fortunately a small mod will be enough to bring the door itself up to spec.

Oh I don't know. Many years ago when I was a Sunday newspaper delivery boy and the papers were big plus supplements one could have a great tug of war with the vociferous canine on the other side and after 5 minutes leave the resident with the remnants of their Sunday reading.

Why didn't you just let the dog take the paper?

Owner training!

I suppose so. Maybe the technology has improved.

We have had a letter box mounted on the front wall for years. I consider a slot in an outside door to be a significant security risk, especially with a thumbturn inside the door --- and I think for fire safety the most important thing is being able to open the outside doors from the inside without having to find a key.

I don't see how that can work if you can "pour" letters through.