We have been told to upgrade our old doors to 1/2 hour fire proofing. because we put in a third floor. Is there a varnish that we can use to do this, if so, what is it and do you know of any uk suppliers?
Gillian
No.
Try this
Regards Peter
In message , gillian writes
A 30 minute fire door from Wickes only cost £30:00. Plus the intrumescent strip. They are heavy enough that they require 3 hinges rather than the 2 you may have at the moment. These can be painted or stained and look quite good. Have they specified automatic door closers of any kind too?
Sounds fantastic. Have you used the stuff or know anyone who has?
I wonder what Building Control Officers think of the stuff?
Colin
I found out today that to do both sides of a door (stairwell) would cost around 210 pounds.
The Albi System
One used to be able to glue asbestos to them but nowadays it's cheaper to buy new. The trouble is these things are made of mica and chipboard and fall apart under the least drunken disturbance. They are in fact ... crap. Fortunately they look it too, so you are under no whatsit on that score.
You might try applying varnish as a burglar proof. It will help.
If it's raining, the tiny burglar feet may slip.
When we had our conversion done we only had to fit closers to existing doors to all habitable rooms on all three floors. The NEW doors on the 2nd floor had to be 1/2hr rated, also any existing glazed doors (we had one on the kitchen) had to be replaced or the glazing replaced with "georgian wired" glass.
Maybe the regulations have changed in the last couple of years - have you actually checked with your local building control dept or could this "required" upgrade be some kind of money-making scam by your builder? Could be a couple of days work to change out a whole house full of doors!
The funny thing was, if I replaced the glazed door with an ordinary internal door the day before the work started (as I did) then that was OK - only a closer was needed, BUT if the loft co did it as part of the job then it would have to be a proper 1/2hr door. Madness.
Not sure about "varnish" - sounds a bit unlikely but I read that stuff about the Envirograf thing - the information there seems to refer to "timber doors" with panels of at least a certain thickness. Not sure how/whether this would apply to modern "moulded MDF and cardboard core" doors like our "panel effect" ones.
Regards, Simon.
Simon Stroud wrote
The Regs have indeed changed Simon. Now, if you have a window in the roof that complies as an "escape window" you don't need to touch the existing doors at all, as they are not on the escape route, but you still have to have a FR30 door to isolate the loft from the floor below. If you can't provide the escape window (usually because there is no ladder access to it) then you need to upgrade all the existing doors on the escape route to FR30 and fit a self closing device. The Regs now allow rising butts for this, so hopefully the days of the Perko door slammer might be numbered :o)
Well, I suppose if you have modern flush or moulded doors then it would be sensible (and cheaper probably) to replace the door with a similar FR30 type. The intumescent coating route is for when you want to keep old period doors.
There is another manufacturer of intumescent varnish --
Regards Peter
Colin wrote
Blimey! I did mean varnish, not liquid platinum.
Useful if you have a listed building to protect and have to keep the original doors, but for most places replacing the door will be cheaper.
Colin Bignell
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