Here at Principal Doorsets, we are committed to fire safety. We strive to help raise awareness and understanding of the critical role that fire doors play in saving lives and protecting property in the unfortunate event of a fire.
We are proud that here, at our Barnstaple manufacturing site, we are independently third party certificated to the highest standard for the manufacture of fire doors and carry out rigorous testing on our products as our Director, Stan Bond explains.
“Fire doors are not like any other door. They are life-saving devices and contain components that must work together to ensure that should a fire break out, flames and smoke are contained in a compartment for a specified time. By keeping the fire and smoke trapped for a defined period, this allows time for people to get out, or protect an area (e.g., stairwell) for fire crews to use to attack fire and makes the fire easier to tackle with less damage to the building. However, if the door is not fit for purpose or ill fitting it will not be able to protect our homes or our loved ones.”
“We have been producing BM TRADA, Q-Mark products here at our premises in Barnstaple for the past eight years. This is regarded as one of the most rigorous certification processes available for construction products.”
BM Trada uses plugs to identify fire performance. The plugs are machined into the edge of the doorset (can be frame of leaf) that are not easily removed or damaged, allowing a longer life cycle to the doorset (fire resistance and manufacturer) identification.
BM Trada – Colour Coding of Identification Plug System:
The outer plugs represent the following periods of Fire resistance (minutes):
“We rigorously test our fire doors in specialist UKAS accredited facilities to ensure our doors exceed fire safety requirements, we advocate integrated doorset (where frame door and essential hardware are tested together), we would then apply a silver or white tree to a plug.” Stan continues. “Some people think fire safety only exists in high rise, high-risk buildings but fires can occur and be devastating in any type of building you can think of and that’s why fire doors are so important. Through our testing we can see that when used correctly, fire doors can contain fires from spreading and ultimately save lives. Fire doors that are wedged open are not being used correctly. For years we have seen and heard horror stories of when fire doors have been propped open. We want to remind people that for a fire door to work and to stop the spread of fire, it must remain closed.”
With over 400 years of combined experience in doorset supply, here at Principal Doorsets, we pride ourselves on creating high quality, performance doorsets that exceed our customer’s expectations. By closely monitoring industry and construction standards this enables us to provide each customer with the assurance that their projects conform to the latest standards, helping them deliver their commitment.