Understanding the types of doors and fire doors on the market is essential for making the right choice for your property. Whether you’re looking to replace the doors in a commercial property or a rental house, Leader Online has all the information about fire doors you could need.

What is a fire door and what is the purpose of a fire door?

Fire doors are an integral, and essential, part of a building’s passive fireproofing plan. They’re used for fire compartmentation which is the placing of physical barriers in strategic spots around a building, in order to slow the spread of flames and smoke in the event of a fire.

These fire doors can be made with a combination of multiple different materials such as timber, steel, gypsum, and aluminium. They can be solid or have windows. The windows are made from either borosilicate or ceramic glass due to their higher fire resistance than regular glass and may contain an anti-shatter wire mesh.

To enhance their fire-stopping abilities, fire doors are flush with the frame and any gaps are filled with a silicone-based fire-resistant sealant. Fire doors will also often have an intumescent strip at the base of the door that expands and fills the gap when exposed to heat to prevent smoke from seeping underneath.

Finally, You will often find that fire doors have a spring-loaded or hydraulic closing mechanism to force the door closed. This also helps to prevent fire from passing from one area of the building to another.

What is the difference between a normal door and a fire door?

While many doors can have all or a combination of the features we already mentioned, they may not necessarily be fire doors. To have the title “fire door”, the door in question must be certified. Fire door certification is awarded once a door has passed various tests at an approved centre, including a fire and stress simulation. You can tell which doors have been certified by a label attached to their top edge, which states the manufacturer, date of manufacture, and designated fire rating.

There are few differences in the appearance between fire doors and normal doors which is why this certification is important and helps you to recognise which doors will help to slow the spread of a fire.

There are different grades of fire doors, and each one provides a different level of protection. The grades are separated by how long they can withstand fire. The main ones that Leader Online stocks are FD30 fire doors (30 minutes).

What is a Class B fire door?

Fire doors are commonly described as being either Class A or Class B.

Class A fire doors are made of 08 materials of better quality, their service life is generally between 5 to 8 years, and their door panels are relatively thick. Generally, Class A fire doors are used in important places such as private room doors, power distribution doors, and equipment rooms of automatic fire extinguishing systems in high-rise buildings.

The materials used for Class B fire doors include wood and steel, their thickness is much lower than that of Class A fire doors, and their service life is not as long as Class A fire doors. Class B fire doors are generally used in relatively ordinary fire passages, such as enclosed staircases, smoke-proof staircases, fire elevators, and room doors. Compared with Class A fire doors, the scope of use is wider and can be found pretty much everywhere in schools, homes, and many office spaces.

All of Leader Online’ fire doors are tested and certified to be suitable for use. For the perfect options for any space you are installing doors in, make sure you pick up your fire doors from right here at Leader Online.