The protection of the people that use a given building should take precedence for any commercial premises. It doesn’t matter if your building is an office, warehouse, factory, school or retail space. The right fire protection systems will be a huge help to you if you need to deal with an emergency situation.
One of the systems that you will need to consider to protect your building are steel fire doors. While they may never be used, steel fire doors are essential in controlling a fire and helping to guide people out of the building safely.
What Is a Fire-Rated Door?
A fire door is a door that has been specially designed and tested to withstand fire for a certain period of time. Fire doors are not designed to eliminate the fire, rather they are to allow the fire to be contained and create a safe exit for the occupants inside and to protect other areas of the building.
The additional time that a fire door provides can make a critical difference, allowing the occupants to evacuate the building safely and providing the fire services the time to effectively respond.
Fire-rated doors should be installed in areas such as stairwells, corridors, plant rooms, warehouses and service areas, as part of a building’s fire compartmentation strategy.
Why Steel Is Preferred
Of all the materials used for fire doors, steel is by far the most used as it has the highest strength of all the building materials and offers the greatest assurance.
Daily use of commercial buildings, with hundreds of door openings and closings each week, can test a building’s materials to their limits. The strength and durability of steel allows for use in these environments for many years to come.
Beyond fire resistance, steel doors also have other benefits that include:
Durability in high use environments
Impact and wear resistance
Low maintenance
High dependability in demanding situations
These properties make steel doors the ideal solution in high traffic and high use industrial and commercial settings.
Supporting Workplace Safety
Planning and preparing the correct safety measures, even before an emergency, is critical to effective fire safety.
Steel fire doors, when installed properly, offer excellent fire safety by restricting movement of fire and smoke throughout a building. This can help provide a longer safe path of travel for an orderly and timely exit.
The protection provided by fire-rated doors can be significantly diminished if the seals, hinges or mechanisms are not maintained. This is why a program to provide regular maintenance on doors and other fire safety equipment is a critical part of any fire safety program.
Meeting Fire Safety Responsibilities
As the owner or manager of a building, you have a legal responsibility to ensure your building meets current fire safety standards. Compliance with these standards may require fire-rated doors in your building, depending on its intended use and purpose.
The entire door set comprises the door frame, door hardware, glazing, seals and other accessories. Poor selection of individual components, or their installation, can significantly affect the performance of a door. The performance of fire safety measures also depends on the regular inspection and servicing of fire safety equipment.
Investing in Long-Term Protection
Fire safety equipment cannot be overlooked in the operations of a business. The time and circumstances of an emergency cannot be determined, but safety measures can be put in place beforehand.
Investing in high quality steel fire doors will help to ensure the safety of employees, clients, visitors and business assets. They together with regular maintenance and a complete fire safety plan provide assurance of protection to comply with legislative requirements and creates a workplace that is safe and secure.