Fire Doors 101

If you're expanding your business, growing your business or are constructing a new building for your business - you may not be familiar with fire doors, how they work, or the fact that building codes require them for virtually every commercial and/or multi-use building.

Fire Doors 101: What Are They?

Fire doors are just one element of a full-scale fire protection system. The full system includes additional fire barriers, including specially treated walls, ceilings and floors. Fire systems prevent the spread of fire and smoke from one area of a building to another or, at the very least, significantly slows their spread so occupants have time to safely exit the building.

Fire doors are legally required as per the International Building Code (IBC) and International Fire Code (IFC) when your building:

• Contains a door that has an "Exit" sign over or around it.

• Where a door leads to an area where flammable or hazardous materials are stored.

• If a door leads to a stairwell or a horizontal exit.

• When a door leads to a hallway or from one completely enclosed room to another.

If you aren't sure whether or not your current business or building is compliant with current fire system regulations, you can contact your local building department and schedule an appointment with a building official.

What Are Fire Doors Made From?

When most people think of fire doors, they imagine boring or plain-Jane commercial doors. In fact, fire doors can have attractive, solid wood facades. The important factor is typically what's inside the door layers. Modern fire doors are built using a combination of materials, including steel, gypsum, wood, vermiculite and/or wire-mesh glass. There are many different types of fire doors and fire door styles. Fire doors can also be purchased via different "Ratings."

What Are Fire Door Ratings?

Fire doors are broken down into categories or "ratings" based on how long their fire/smoke protection should last in the event of a fire. These ratings are as follows:

• 3 Hours: These doors are required for areas that are installed in walls that separate two buildings, or walls that divide a single building into separate, designated fire areas.

• 1.5 Hours: Doors with this rating are designed for areas that open into stairwells or elevators, where an exit occurs via vertical movement. They are also used for doors installed in exterior walls that are considered to have a severe fire exposure from the outside of the building.

• 1 Hour. 1-Hour doors are used to divide occupancies in a building.

• 3/4 Hour (45 minutes). Doors designed to withstand 45 minutes-worth of fire and/or smoke infiltration should be installed where there are openings in corridors, in between room partitions or a door on an exterior wall considered to have moderate to low risk of exterior fire potential.

• 1/3 Hour (20 minutes). Yes! It even gets this specific. The 1/3 hour door has more to do with smoke than fire, and they are installed in corridors where draft and smoke control is required, and where the walls have a fire rating of at least one hour.

Your local building department and/or fire inspector will be able to let you know which doors you need to install where.

One of the most common fire door citations is for companies who have propped open or otherwise tampered with a fire door to keep it open during working hours. This is a big no-no. If you have a fire door that you know will remain open, install a device that automatically releases when the fire alarm is activated (such as an electromagnetic hold open device).