Self Closing Doors

GForrow · 13 Sep 2009

After a bit of advice here. I live in a 3 storey detached house, that has self closing fire doors. The self closers are the chain vaariety, which results in slamming doors, whenever they are let go of. I also have intumescent strips round the door. My house was built probably 4 years ago, so pre dates the 2006 building regs.

Now I have read the latest regs, and my understanding is that self closers are no longer required, unless through into a garage, and my garage is detached.

So can I go around the house and remove the self closing chains and still meet the current regs??

If not, can someone recommend a way of stopping the doors slamming shut, as it is annoying, and a little dangerous. I have found chains with hydraulics, well expensive. I also found a site with door checks, but emailed them and got no repsonse about pricing, or availability.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Gary

Steve · 13 Sep 2009

I'm guessing you have these on all upstairs doors. I understand if you have a fire door and firewall leading up to the 3rd storey, it removes the need to have them on the 2nd storey bedrooms. Might be worth thinking about.

GForrow · 13 Sep 2009

They are on all doors on all floors, including, ground except for the bathrooms. So Dining Room, study, lounge and all bedrooms.

The stairs are in the middle of the house, and the wall on one side is a breeze block wall, not sure on the other side as I haven't drilled into it.

More investigation required.

Thanks

Gary

JohnD · 13 Sep 2009

you could experiment with draughtproofing strip on the stops of the frames. Prob is that it will cause the door to stand a little out from current position. I have toyed with the idea of a tube draught strip in a rebate so that it compress a secend or two after the door has hit it.

I have also used Door Buffers on kitchen cab doors and wondered if two or more set into the stop would do the trick. They are pneumatic and close fully after a momentary delay. The german ones you can recess into a drilled hole, they don't have to be bracket mounted. However fire doors are very heavy.

I haven't yet tried either idea on mine.

gregers · 14 Sep 2009

why not take the percos out and readjust them so they dont slam,trial and error here becuase you need to make sure the doors latch,OH and dont forget to use a perco clip or your lose your fingers.

JohnD · 14 Sep 2009

even if the perko is adjusted not to slam, if the wind is behind them these heavy fire doors will close pretty hard.

GForrow · 15 Sep 2009

I did take one out, after wedging a nail in the chain. I don't have a proper tool, builder fitted these.

I wound the canister all the way both ways, and it seemd to make little difference to the spped of the door, so much so, I wasn't sure which way it should have been.

So.

If you look down the barrel, there is an adjustor that moves up and down the thread. I assume that when the adjustor is at the end where the plate is, i.e. door face, or as far down the barrel as possible, this is the lowest tension possible. Please correct me if thats wrong, but I may try another one this weekend, to get a better idea.

Ta.

Gary

stellaman · 17 Sep 2009

you have to be careful as at the time of your building works they were required along with an FD30 fire door and frame. The regs changed and now you only require an FD20 door with an FD30 frame. You cant actually get an FD20 door now only FD30, its really the intumescent strip in the door that makes it an FD30. These are only required to habital rooms (and now stores) so bathrooms are not required.
To be 100% sure you can remove the perko's (horrible design) I'd ring your local building control and speak to an officer. It should be ok to remove them but you dont want to risk your house insurance in the event of a claim.