Social housing providers have a duty of care to maintain their housing stock under the Decent Homes initiative, to ensure that they are safe and habitable. Since the Grenfell Tower fire five years ago, there has been an even greater focus on fire safety in property maintenance and upgrade. The Greater Manchester social housing provider, Irwell Valley Homes, has a compliance team that inspects its 8,000 homes on a rolling programme to prioritise upgrade works to fire safety.
One of the key areas surveyed for safety and compliance is the fire doors in the properties. Over the past two years, more than 500 fire doors have been replaced at Irwell Valley properties, in residential towers and smaller apartment blocks. Specialist contractor, Jackson Jackson & Sons works with doorset manufacturer, PDS and hardware manufacturer, UAP to deliver the fire door upgrades, as part of wider fire safety works.
Dan Williams, contracts manager at Jackson Jackson says: “Every year, we receive a schedule of properties that are due for upgrade works from Irwell Valley Homes and we work collaboratively with their compliance team to prioritise the upgrades and agree a schedule. Once we have agreed a programme with the client, we carry out joint surveys with PDS to ensure that the correct specification of doorset is ordered for each installation, aligned to the agreed schedule.”
Apartments
The most recent fire door upgrade project carried out by Jackson Jackson for Irwell Valley homes using PDS doorsets with UAP hardware was at Eastwood Court, a block of sheltered housing apartments in Bury, Greater Manchester. The upgrade for the four-storey housing involved replacement of all fire doors and improvements to the fire stopping. After the initial surveys, Jackson Jackson met with the residents’ association and the properties’ management team to discuss what the work involved and show tenants what the doors would look like when they were finished.
Dan says: “Almost all the upgrades we do are in occupied properties so it’s really important that we make people aware of what will be happening and how it will benefit them. We also want to reassure tenants that the improvements will be done at no cost to them and that their new doors and any other work we carry out will be fully certified to the current standards.”
Part of that reassurance for tenants is in the testing and quality assurance carried out by the joined-up supply chain. While there is no mandatory certification required for retro-fitted fire doors, a requirement for bilateral fire resistance test evidence for all fire doorset installations, including refurbishment works, is expected as part of a forthcoming Fire Safety Bill. For Irwell Valley Homes, fully certified doorsets with fire resistant hardware are already fitted as standard.
At Eastwood Court, the requirement was for FD30 solid timber doors with integral smoke seals to provide 30 minutes of effective protection against both smoke and flames for the entrance to every property.
Kevin Barnes, sales director at PDS says: “As this is a low-rise apartment block, 30 minutes protection is sufficient to enable safe evacuation of all residents. Our doorsets provide protection from fire and smoke from both sides of the door having been successfully tested to the more rigorous and very latest EN1634 dual orientation testing specification as complete doorsets with all UAP hardware installed, contributing to smooth project delivery, whilst providing high levels of safety for residents.”
Supply chain
PDS supplied the doorsets for Eastwood Court as installation-ready units, with a complete set of UAP hardware from the company’s Firemongery range, including handles, a Soterian TS008 compliant fire rated letter plate and a 14mm fire resistant door viewer (spyhole).
Kevin Barnes says: “The doorsets are manufactured by us to a proven quality and high specification with all UAP Firemongery hardware, intumescent fire and smoke seals, threshold seal and overhead closer pre-installed and fully tested by Warrington Fire. We work closely with UAP to ensure that new door designs are specified with the right hardware first time, enabling a smooth testing and certification process. The hardware is not just fire rated, it also looks good, which means that the finished door answers the housing association’s safety requirements, while providing an appearance that every resident can be proud of.”
Replacement of all 50 apartment entrance doors at Eastwood Court was completed in two and a half weeks, with the strategy of using certified FD30 doorsets with pre-installed fire resistant hardware enabling faster installation and smoother work.
Rick Winnard, senior planned surveyor from Irwell Valley Homes adds: “Tenant safety and comfort are priorities for us. Using this joined up supply chain with full Warrington Fire certification of the doorsets, including pre-installed UAP Firemongery hardware, ensured we have clear accountability for safety and compliance, along with reduced disruption for residents, thanks to a fast and efficient programme.”
