Wrongly fitted fire door - request letter

bolsenpln

Hello, could you please check my letter to management building company to change wrongly fitted fire door? My agency doesn't give a !!!! and say to me that I'm eligible to write to company on my own. I'm not native, so any suggestions or clarifying ideas are appreciated.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I'm tenant of apartment X in Z House. I would like to express concern regarding fire safety of building. Fire door between hallway and two apartments (nr X and Y) has wrong orientation. Instead of opening towards hallway, they are opening towards main door of my flat blocking it almost completely (when fully opened, it’s around 10-15 cm between door and wall). I’m enclosing technical scheme showing how this door should be installed.

To better describe this situation this situation, I will give you few examples:
• pizza delivered can't fit through door in horizontal position,
• struggle to come through door with bigger shoppings or parcels,
• wider men have problems slipping between door and wall,

• stroller for children wouldn’t fit.

I am concerned and see many potential dangerous situations caused by this:
• in the event of fire, escaping flat could be hard as there’s not enough space,
• ambulance crew would have problems taking in or out any medical equipment (e.g. medical stretches) in the event of any accident,
• when my wife is pregnant I can't imagine her walking through this door.

I do not think these fire door are installed correctly, despite all other fire exit doors in building are installed correctly and doesn’t cause such problems. According to enclosed scheme (pdf) it should open outwards from (in the direction of escape). I’ve found these requirements online, from section 14-2(d) of the RRFSO:

'Emergency routes and exits
14.—(2) The following requirements must be complied with in respect of premises where necessary
(whether due to the features of the premises, the activity carried on there, any hazard present or
any other relevant circumstances) in order to safeguard the safety of relevant persons—
(a)emergency routes and exits must lead as directly as possible to a place of safety;

(b)in the event of danger, it must be possible for persons to evacuate the premises as quickly and as safely as possible;

(d) emergency doors must open in the direction of escape'”.

I hope this letter would give you clear vision, why it’s not safe and how necessary it is to replace this door with opening towards hallway. If you need closer look please come to house and take a look in person.

Therefore, I am asking to change the direction of opening the door or install new ones if necessary. I would appreciate it if this could be fixed as soon as possible, as it’s matter of safety and could you inform me of estimated repair time?

Thank you for attending to this as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely,

XXX

troffasky

Make sure you include some pictures with your letter to the management company. I'm struggling to imagine what this looks like.

naf123

If you get nowhere maybe speak to the fire brigade. They probably have enforcement powers in these things ? I may be wrong though

Aylesbury_Duck

Stick to the safety angle. Not being able to get a pizza delivered through the door horizontally is not a great argument...

FreeBear

Aylesbury_Duck wrote: »

Stick to the safety angle. Not being able to get a pizza delivered through the door horizontally is not a great argument...

Agreed. Simply order smaller pizzas or go for a Chinese takeaway.


Might also be worth contacting the local building control officer - If the door fails to comply with building regulations, the council could take enforcement action.

MX5huggy

Yes remove the pizza bit and replace with fireman wearing breathing apparatus.

The relevant legislation is the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 the fire service inspect then issue enforcement notices of varying severity. When we get these at work, they make us do stuff! Normally go round getting tenants to remove junk from landings.