Fire door in domestic property

[theheatherjane1]

I made the mistake of having a guy from Buildings Control round to sign off some work that it turned out wasn't anything to do with buildings control to start with, and on his way out he informed me that he wouldn't sign anything off until I'd replaced my lovely original kitchen door with a fire door.
Hmmm.
Does anyone know anything about them? Can I just buy the cheapest one? He only specified which hinges we need.

We're in the process of selling the flat and just trying to tie up loose ends, so doesn't need to be a thing of beauty.

Sorry link doesn't work.

Op yes, that's right. There is no legal requirement for you to have a fire floor on your kitchen. In fact, as far as I know, there's never been a requirement to have one on a domestic kitchen unless your house was 3 storeys or more.

So he's wrong yes. Refer him to building regs, approved document B part 1 (dwellings). 2006 amendments.

Try this link. It's a simple guide

The amount of storeys is important. Is yours a 3 storey house?

Totally bog-standard semi, Bit.

I found "Means of escape from flats" on page 21-22 (not more than 4.5m above ground) <a class="break-all" href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20151113141044/www.planningportal.gov.uk/uploads/br/br_pdf_ad_b2_2013.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20151113141044/www.planningportal.gov.uk/uploads/br/br_pdf_ad_b2_2013.pdf
but have not finished it yet.

Then you do not need a fire door unless it's been divided to into more than one dwelling Swedish

Faced with a similar demand from a bco inspecting something else I was brave and challenged him. I asked for the specific regs that meant the work done necessitated fire doors. He said it was not a requirement but advisory and backed down.

BCOs have to know a lot about a lot of different stuff and often don't know the details about a particular area.

I'm a bit concerned that the OP's bloke isn't even a proper BCO

Great news, Bit! Thanks . Just to be totally, totally sure - does the distance of said door from neighbour's house matter i.e the distance is the width of their drive and a path at side our house? All standard - nothing odd. Timber fence in between.

No. That makes no difference. In a normal 2 storey semi there is no need for fire doors except between the living area and any integral garage if you have them

Excellent, thank you!

I'm glad that my tragically obscure knowledge has finally been of use on mn

I'm loving your tragically obscure knowledge.
Can't thank you enough and I'll let you know how we get on.

It's me again. I just looked at the link you referenced and maybe this is what BO was referring to;
'Rooms around a protected stairway must have fire doors, so that people can escape by way of the stairs if necessary without being at risk'

Our kitchen door leads on to our hallway where the stairs leading down are situated.
Do you think this may be the reason why?

As in the floor plan

By a protected stairway I understand a stairway in a block of flats. A communal stairway.

Ahhhhhhh! Damn you're good!

Do you have a mains smoke alarm system? Evidently you don't have to have fire doors if you have one. We recently had a loft conversion and we were told this and it passed building regs. It's safer generally because not many people close all their doors all the time. We had to have one put in loft bedroom but didn't have to change every single door ( which a friend of mine had to as she didn't know about the smoke alarm thing and it cost her a fortune).

If the property is now three storeys reup you do need a fire door with a door closer. A door cannot be a fire door without a closer on it.

We have one fire door as you enter the loft. No closer though. It's passed inspection.

It's not a fire door if it doesn't have a closer sorry. And it shouldn't have passed inspection unless you have it wired into your alarm to close automatically if it goes off. Which is very unlikely in a dwelling.

Yes on an external side door or window to any room the distance to next door (actually to the boundary) does indeed matter.
If you're less than 1m away you need to have iirc 60 mins fire resistance.
This is to stop a great fire of London situation where each house sets the next on fire.
If you're less than 2m away you can have around 6m2 of unprotected area so as long as not too many windows it's fine.

The above post was for SwedishEdith just to be clear!

I beg your padon Edith John is correct. Though in my experience I have never met a BOC who insisted on this

Funny, just catching up here and spotted update - with dismay. Probably 1m from external door to boundary then width of their drive to their house - so 4m? So, yes or no to needing a fire door? No windows on our ground floor (except in the door).