Fire doors play a vital role in a building’s safety. They prevent smoke from entering the stairwell and creating a chimney effect that could cause smoke to spread into residential areas, offices, or other compartments within a building.
To prevent this from happening, it is important to teach users how to use fire doors properly and encourage them to help create a safer environment. To do this, it is important to be aware of the bad habits that should be avoided and that could endanger the building’s occupants.
Common mistakes to avoid:
1. Block the open door with wedges, ashtrays, fire extinguishers, or other objects to prevent the door from closing. To fulfill their function, fire doors must remain closed at all times. In this regard, it is also important to note that a door closer is a mandatory accessory under current fire safety regulations, and that it must be inspected regularly to ensure it functions properly.
That said, there will be places where fire doors must remain open at all times, such as the hallways in shopping malls. In such cases, the doors will be held open by electromagnets connected to a power source, which will allow them to close automatically in the event of a fire.
2. Since these are security doors and are located on evacuation routes, you must never padlock them or secure the panic bars with chains.
The proper way to lock a door to prevent access from the outside is to use a panic lock, which allows the door to be locked with a key while also enabling evacuation from the inside using panic bars without the need for a key.
3. A key should never be required to open a fire door that provides access from the garage to the stairwell or elevator area, and it is recommended that a key also not be required to exit from the stairwell to the garage, although the latter is not prohibited by current regulations.
Maintenance: A User’s Responsibility
To ensure that fire doors function properly, it is necessary to perform periodic maintenance in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions or the basic guidelines set forth in the Technical Building Code.
Read our Assembly and Maintenance Instructions here:
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