Commercial buildings are breaking fire door safety regulations on a huge scale and putting occupiers at risk, a new survey has revealed.
The survey of 860 trade professionals, conducted by IronmongeryDirect, revealed that over the past few years 93% of tradespeople had spotted a fire door being propped open illegally with a door stop when they have been working on a commercial or public building.
Commercial buildings containing small or medium-sized businesses are the worst offenders with 72% likely to prop doors open illegally, followed by commercial buildings housing large businesses (64%) and public buildings (42%).
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Tradespeople were also more likely to witness this offence in older, traditional buildings (56%) than in new builds (15%).
The study also found that 74% of tradespeople had come across a fire door that was blocked or obstructed and 58% had spotted accessibility issues with fire doors in commercial or public buildings.
When those questioned were asked to reveal the most common faults they found when checking or maintaining fire doors, 73% said the biggest problem was that many did not have intumescent seals, which are vital for the fire door’s performance.
Other common breaches were doors not closing properly (63%), incorrect signage (49%), general wear and tear (47%) and loose or faulty latches (30%).
Wayne Lysaght-Mason, managing director at IronmongeryDirect, said: “Fire safety is clearly still a significant problem concerning commercial and public buildings in the UK, so having robust safety procedures in place is extremely important to ensure that building occupants and users are safe.
“Fire doors play a crucial part in the fire protection of every commercial, public and multiple occupancy building, but as our research shows, more needs to be done to ensure they are installed and maintained properly to comply with fire regulations and provide the utmost protection.”
The survey comes in advance of Fire Door Safety Week (26 September-2 October 2016).
