Fire Doors and Doorsets – How will you comply when CE Marking comes?

Manufacturing and installing a door is usually straight forward for any joinery company, but is this also true of a fire door? Quite simply, the answer is “No!”

Fire doors are an essential requirement in a building’s passive fire protection system. When correctly manufactured, installed and maintained, they will hold back fire and smoke for a defined period to help occupiers escape from a fire, by protecting escape routes and helping to prevent fire from spreading. And to perform in this way, they are engineered, in conjunction with specific components, to achieve this.

Under current Building Regulations, fire doors are identified by their performance under test to BS 476 : Part 22, and to show compliance, the doors are usually supplied with evidence to show that the design and construction will perform in the event of a fire – often in the form of test evidence or certificate.

All this is about to change when the CE Marking of Fire Doorsets comes into effect this year. The BWF’s Fire Door Certification Scheme has issued guidelines for what this will mean for its members – and perhaps we can help you too.

Joinery companies join the BWF Fire Door Scheme because their customers demand some form of proof that the doors they supply will be safe in the event of a fire, and that they are competent in processing the door leaf or door blank to ensure that the correct fire performance is retained. The unique label they apply to the door provides that information, and proof or certification.

Often this work entails cutting apertures and glazing the door, resizing a blank or door leaf and servicing the door ready for ironmongery, or even supplying the door as a doorset or ‘door-kit’. As the Building Regulations state “small differences in detail (such as glazing apertures, intumescent strips, door frames and ironmongery etc) may significantly affect the rating”. So it’s worthwhile considering joining the BWF Fire Door Scheme as a Licensed Processor, to demonstrate to customers that your company is licensed by the door blank or door leaf manufacturer, and certificated to undertake this work.

Your staff will be fully trained by the BWF and the licensing company, and you will be audited to ensure your manufacturing systems are geared to carry out the work. It will also be a good stepping-stone to CE Marking any doorsets you supply when the Regulation comes into effect.

If you’d like to know more about joining the BWF-CERTIFIRE Fire Door Scheme contact  .Hannah Mansell on 0844 209 2610 or email hannah.mansell@bwf.org.uk