Fire doors in 3 flat Victorian conversion

lab3000

I am trying to find out whether fire doors are needed as the front doors of the three flats in a Victorian terraced house conversion. There are three flats - one ground, one first and one second. The building is less than 11m tall. The flats are owned by three leaseholders and we have a questionably competent management company managing on behalf of the freeholder. We want to make sure we are in compliance with the law but between us are finding available advice confusing. Any thoughts very gratefully received.

grumbler

I'm no expert, but I'd be surprised if fire doors weren't required nowadays.

Jonboy_1984

Long and short of it is yes it is likely.

Building regulations mean any dwelling over 4.5m from ground level will likely need them (although the regs in place when the doors were fitted are the relevant version).

Fire safety risk assessment legislation means the most recent assessments will almost certainly recommend them, and under the law the management company & freeholder would need incredibly strong reasoning to go against the recommendations….or risk imprisonment of the directors if something happened and people got injured.

Having worked in the clean up of fires in commercial premises, I honestly don’t understand why people wouldn’t want them (particularly with items such as e-bikes and e-scooters lurking in more properties…and flats in particular due to the space constraints).