From the get-go, you must protect your commercial building and its contents and occupants by installing fire-rated doors. Prioritizing strategic places like entrances, exits, walkways, and other critical areas can help ensure that everything you've worked for won't send your business up in smoke.
Fire doors are legally required in all non-domestic buildings, this includes: A commercial building. A public building. A business premises (like an office)
Opening Types and Ratings
Commercial codes typically mandate that door units must have a fire rating that is at least 75% of the rating assigned to the surrounding wall.
Fire doors are therefore normally required in all doorways leading to escape routes. They are also usually required for rooms that have a higher risk of a fire starting (for example, IT server rooms, boiler rooms or rooms containing flammable liquids). You should refer to your risk assessment for further guidance.
As such, fire-rated doors are commonly found at points of egress to create evacuation pathways through entrances, exits, lobbies and stairwells.
If your front door faces onto a common area in the building, it needs to be a fire door. It's vital that it works properly when a fire breaks out, so it's important that your flat front door is a fire door, it is fit for purpose and can be regularly inspected and maintained.
The biggest point is that they meet these IBC codes, and therefore, standard commercial door dimensions are on average about 36 inches by 80 inches.
Exit route doors must be unlocked from the inside. They must be free of devices or alarms that could restrict use of the exit route if the device or alarm fails. Side-hinged exit doors must be used to connect rooms to exit routes.
By ADA standards, the clear width of a door opening must be a minimum of 32 inches. This clear width measurement is taken between the face of the door and the stop of the frame with the door open to 90 degrees (Figure A). In pairs, at least one of the active leaves must comply with this clear width requirement.
Fire-rated doors, or doors that are made to withstand heat, smoke and fire, are required for many commercial buildings. Beyond that requirement, a business may want to invest in fire-rated doors for the safety of everyone and the protection of property.
Bathrooms: In most cases, bathroom doors are not required to be fire-rated, as these areas are generally considered low-risk in terms of fire.
Building regulations and fire door ratings
In a small, simple building, where safe escape is straight forward, there may be no requirement for fire doors at all. In a complex building or where users may require assistance to escape, fire doors with higher fire ratings such as FD60 may be required.
Fire-rated interior doors are installed throughout buildings as an extra barrier to protect property and any employees, customers, or visitors who are in a building should a fire occur. Some fire doors are required by law, while others are recommended for extra protection.
Unlike their ordinary counterparts, fire doors are constructed with fire-resistant materials and are equipped with special seals that expand when exposed to heat, blocking smoke and flames from passing through. This containment ability is crucial during a fire, providing occupants with valuable time to evacuate safely.
Fire resisting door to exit openings of apartment/maisonette units, protected staircases, protected lobbies, exit passageway, compartment walls etc. shall have minimum half hour fire resistance. Doors to exit facilities shall not be fitted with any locking device.
An opening into an exit must be protected by a self-closing fire door that remains closed or automatically closes in an emergency upon the sounding of a fire alarm or employee alarm system. Each fire door, including its frame and hardware, must be listed or approved by a nationally recognized testing laboratory.
Sometimes fire exit doors are, under normal circumstances, part of the usual route of traffic, such as a front door. Fire exits can also be for emergency use only, and not used during normal operation. Sliding or revolving doors must not be used for exits specifically intended as fire exits.
NFPA 80 requires that fire doors be installed with a certain amount of clearance around them, such as a minimum of 1/8 inch between the door and the frame, to ensure that the door can properly seal and function in the event of a fire.
Commercial exterior doors are typically required to be at least 36 inches wide and 80 inches tall to accommodate accessibility and equipment movement.
It is essentially, the true door opening width. The clear width must be no less than 32" minimum. In relation to storefront aluminum doors, this calculates out to be that the storefront door must be no less than a 3'-0" or 36" door.
They are an essential element in keeping a fire contained, and in some instances, stopping a fire. Commercial buildings are required by law to have fire doors subject to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order: 2005; also known as RRO or FSO.
While fire doors are required in specific locations to provide adequate protection from fire, they also come with their own set of benefits. Some expected benefits include: Stopping the spread of fire. Reducing the amount of smoke in a building.
Smoke doors operate in a similar manner to fire doors with their primary aim to stop the spread of smoke through a building — but not necessarily flames. Unlike fire doors that are fire resistant and designed to help contain the fire itself, smoke doors are purely to halt and dramatically reduce the spread of smoke.