Shut doors at night - or not?

[Thisisnotreallymyname]

I'm often the last one to go up the stairs at night, so as I'm going I close all the doors behind me, especially the dining room door which leads straight into the hall.
The reason for this is , I reckon that if there were a fire at night in the kitchen or dining room, then the fact that the door leading into the hall is closed would give vital minutes for us to escape etc.
The is a smoke alarm in the dining room and also one on the landing.
OH - I recently discovered, leaves all the internal doors downstairs open and said that it would make no difference as if there was a fire, we would be more likely to hear the smoke alarm in the dining room going off , if the door was open.
I totally disagree, I think leaving it open gives quicker access to the fire to get into the hall and upstairs , and it's better to keep the dining room door closed as it would contain it more, and anyway I reckon the smoke alarm would wake me up even if door was closed, plus there's the extra one on the landing.
We can't agree - what do you think?

I'm the same OP. And DH isn't. It gives me the rage.

Every night I turn everything off, close the doors behind me, make sure the front and back door keys are where they're supposed to be and that the stairs are clear, the children can get to us without breaking their necks etc.

This is what my parents did and I thought it was just basic household safety every and anyone of any normal level of intelligence does to protect themselves and their families.

Apparently not

I knew about the door thing so always have our bedroom doors closed but I'm panicking now because the stupid previous owners took all the downstairs doors off, 2 doorways have been made into stupid shaped archways, kitchen just has no door. The smoke alarm is right outside the kitchen and is incredibly sensitive, goes off when I'm using the grill and nothing is even burning. But I'm really worrying about it now. Our upstairs escape route is planned though, DDs window as it's above a little porch roof so we could jump down from there.

Our interconnected alarms went off at 5:30 one morning & I heard it through ear plugs.

We both headed to the utility to make sure the cat was ok but there was no fire.

Obviously our fire plan is "pussy cats first".

Always closed, purely because the sight of doors, cupboards, drawers etc. lying open gives me the jibbers worse than the thought of a fire breaking out does.

We moved into our current house about 9 months ago now and one of the first things I did was got the fire service round to check the smoke alarms and give us advice. They installed new fire alarms in the hall outside the kitchen and at the top of the stairs. They also advised us to shut all of the downstairs doors before going to bed to help give us time in the event of the fire. They're all glass panelled doors but something is better than nothing.

We leave the doors open as our flat is quite small and the cats need to be able to go from kitchen to sitting room. They would not put up with being shut in the small kitchen overnight!

I do make sure that the landing is clear though and that there's a clear path from upstairs to the front door. If there was a fire/no light/low visibility then a washing basket on the landing for example could be very bad news.

My parents never did this as we lived in a bungalow so you could always exit through the nearest window. Our flat is upstairs though so it does worry me. I check the smoke alarms regularly and we have a fire extinguisher, but it scares me a bit.

We don't have doors closed because of the fucking cat. She'll howl / scratch / cry to get in and out of rooms.

We do have an alarm on every landing though and have has the fire service inspect us (my LL arranges this as standard when a new tenant moves in)

We never bothered until we got a lift conversion and had to replace our lovely original Victorian wooden doors with fire doors. Seemed silly not to utilise them, so now shut the majority of doors when we got out and over night (leaving a few open downstairs so the dog can access his bed and water)

We never shut doors. CBA with it.

Just a wee thought.... Last fatal fire I attended was 2 adults and their dog.
Is it really worth giving them free reign, they aren't invincible either.

We leave all ours apart from kids doors, open because we have cats. But it is safer to close them.

I shut doors at night for this reason. It probably saved our lives when we had a fire years ago.

Our stairs lead straight upstairs from our lounge so can't shut that off also have cats. Kitchen has no door as well, will have to look for a sliding door.

I wonder how the advice too keep doors shut fits in with so many properties being open plan downstairs these days.

Oh wow I could still remember all the words to that public information film.

I close all ours. When I was a guide the fire fighters told us that it can take a fire 20 minutes to burn through a standard interior door, the cheapy ones so a solid wood one would take much longer. And that keeping internal doors, especially downstairs ones, close can be the difference between escaping and not.

As annoying as it is when the people downstairs burn the bacon at stupid o'clock on a Sunday morning, I am glad that my building has a single integrated alarm system that is tested by my landlord.

It does mean I'm not relying on other people to take fire safety seriously.

I always close all doors.

I posted on the thread about appliances going on fire - a dishwasher caused a major fire and the kitchen was ablaze, if the kitchen door hadn't been closed it would have quickly spread and the sleeping occupants might not have survived.

I once saw on the local TV news fire-brigade photos of the aftermath of a fatal fire in a maisonette in a block of flats - every room, hallway & stairs was black and charred, except the downstairs loo which was completely untouched as the door had been closed.

napqueenI thought you were supposed to have smoke alarms upstairs because smoke rise and gathers under ceilings.

I think some mumsnetters just live in an anxiety obsessed parallel universe to me where you must always carry water even if just going to the shops in case you dehydrate, and always close your doors in case the house burns down.

I think some mumsnetters just live in an anxiety obsessed parallel universe to me where you must always carry water even if just going to the shops in case you dehydrate, and always close your doors in case the house burns down.

I know right! I even know people who wear seatbelts every time they get in the car, in case they have an accident!

I hope you are never unfortunate enough to Lose everything you own in a fire. Prevention saves lives, I'm sorry if you think that's anxiety, it's the truth!

2rebecca having had a (relatively minor) fire that left us out of the house for 6 months while the repairs were done, losing £15ks worth of belogings, I feel like I was forced into that universe.

I hope so too but refuse to join your the world is full of things that might kill me at any second view of the world. I cycle so am far more likely to be squished by a van than die in a fire caused by my turned off oven. I love cycling. We're all going to die. Enjoying living is the important bit

There used to be a great post on here about risk and consequence and the difference between the two.

The risk of your house catching fire is probably very small the consequences of it doing so if your internal doors are open is huge. Why wouldn't you take a very simple step to minimise that consequence unless there was a very good reason for doing so?

i dont have a kitchen or lounge door and the bedrooms are opposite so end up with all doors open