Options for fire doors

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Hi All, we are making an offer on a tenement flat in Scotland. It is a double upper where the attic of the building has been converted. Due to fire regulations, every internal door internal a fire door. We aren't that keen on this because all the doors are self closing, and all of the automatic closers make it look like an office building. Also, as we have 3 kids it will be a lot of door slamming.

I can see online there are options of hidden door closers, as well as some things where the doors can be safely propped open (to be closed if an alarm goes off). But speaking to local tradespeople they didn't seem to have much of an idea about this. They didn't seem keen to help because fire regulations were involved.

Does anybody have an experience with firedoors in their property? Is it something that you got used to, or did you do something to make it less noticeable? Thank you!

We live in a semi and our adjoining neighbours have an attic room. We never had an issue with our original neighbours but the most recent ones have been a nightmare. We could hear the fire door constantly banging closed not to mention the thudding up and down the stairs from their teenage daughter. I have no idea if there was an issue with their fire door or what it looked like but it has caused us so much disturbance. Hoping that our new neighbours will be using the room less or I probably will have a very polite word about the banging.

Isn't it your house so you can do whatever you want - including replacing doors?

You can get door stoppers etc.

If I had an unlimited pot of money I would do this:

1. make sure all fire alarms are interlinked and hard wired... in every habitable room, kitchen has a heat detector.
2. get a fire inspector or someone suitably qualified to give you an option on what doors need to be fire doors. This is usually the kitchen door and utility with dryers in them.
3. get the fire inspector to comment on your escape route as well.

Ultimately if you are all able bodied than you just need to make sure the kitchen door it shut and that your alarms are working,

Thanks - we surely can do what we want subject to fire regulations. The building warrant required all doors to have fire doors because of the loft conversion. There isn't anything we can do about that unfortunately (would be an offence), so we just want the fire doors to be as non-intrusive as possible.

You can change them to the hidden door closers on the hinge side ( perko )
They are also adjustable so they close softly, so no door banging. You can adjust surface mounted ones to soft close as well .

OP is it a Scottish thing that they need to be self closing? Or due to being an apartment?

As we had to update to fire doors on the stairwell (in our house) when doing our attic conversion but just did Todd’s fire doors with the fire/smoke strips. Dearer than the non-fire door versions, but no self closing mechanisms needed.

Alternatively I’d look, as PP suggested, to get a wired in alarm. A friend did this as they wanted to retain their original Victorian doors.

Very interesting, thank you.

I am pretty sure that the self closing regs changed in England when I last looked. Not sure about Scotland. I think they stopped requiring self closing doors as people just tend to prop them open. I know I do with my self closing bedroom door! 😳

The whole self closing fire door concept does seem a bit strange to me.

On the one hand I can see how it helps contain the spread of fires. On the other it surely stops smoke getting to alarms (which are almost always in the hall) more quickly, probably ensuring fires can take a better hold before the alarms go off.

Anyway in my place the previous occupant removed all the self closing devices because they were "annoying".

I am not sure what obligations you might have as regards leasehold/insurance regarding keeping door closures in place.