The Importance of Fire Doors in Commercial Spaces
The importance of fire doors in commercial spaces shouldn’t be underestimated. Ensuring the safety of employees, customers, and valuable assets is paramount and should be an absolute priority for your business. Fire doors play a critical role in your overall fire safety plan, preventing the spread of fire, protecting lives, and safeguarding the continuity of business operations.
If you’d like to know more about how we can help you with fire door installation or servicing, please get in touch at 0151 355 9232.
In this blog, we will highlight the key points of the importance of fire doors in commercial spaces:
- Purpose of fire doors
- Containment and protection
- Fire doors save lives
- Damage limitation to your business
- Compliance and legal obligations
- Fire doors maintenance
The Purpose of Fire Doors
Fire doors are not just ordinary doors, they are engineered to resist the spread of fire and smoke for a decent period of time. Their primary purpose is to create a barrier that hinders the rapid progression of flames and reduces the impact of smoke inhalation. In commercial spaces, where there are lots of people and lots of potential fire hazards, the importance of fire doors cannot be underplayed. Your building will contain several fire doors and they will all have the potential to save someone’s life.
Containment and Protection
Fire doors are made to act as a barrier between the fire and the people or things on the other side of it. This containment protects occupants and allows them more time to escape safely without harm. Fire doors are constructed with fire-resistant materials, such as gypsum or steel, designed to withstand high temperatures.
Containment and protection are huge benefits in commercial settings because there’s often a barrage of people entering and exiting the building at all times meaning there’s more potential for someone to get hurt. Fire doors are absolutely crucial in commercial areas to avoid fire disasters.
Fire doors save lives
As we’ve mentioned previously, a fire door really could save someone’s life. Fire doors are instrumental in ensuring there is enough time for humans to escape the building. A fire door is manufactured to withstand the pressures of fire, toxic gases and smoke for a decent period of time.
Though important in all buildings, this is particularly crucial in larger commercial buildings where a swift and orderly evacuation can be challenging without effective fire containment measures. What’s more is that the chances of a fire happening in a commercial building is higher than residential for example so having equipment like fire doors is paramount.
Damage Limitation to Your Business
Human life is the most important thing to preserve in the case of a fire but it’s also important to limit the amount of damage to your business too. Fire doors also act as a barrier between the fire and your tangible assets. In the aftermath of a fire, the extent of damage can be catastrophic.
By implementing effective fire doors, businesses can mitigate the impact of a fire, confining it to a specific area and minimising the overall destruction. There are lots of different types of fire doors on the market that offer slightly different specifications too so it’s important to shop around and get the best one for your commercial business.
Compliance and Legal Obligations
In many cases around the UK, there are certain regulations and laws that you must abide by in relation to fire doors in commercial spaces. Topics like fire risk assessments, having working fire doors at all times and more all come under the compliance and legal conversations. Failure to comply will result in heavy prosecution with the authorities. If you’re unsure about fire door safety or protection, please get in touch with us as we’d be happy to assist and ensure compliance.
Fire Door Maintenance
The importance of fire door maintenance in commercial spaces must be considered too. While the installation of fire doors is a significant step, their effectiveness relies on regular maintenance and inspection. Fire doors should be inspected periodically to ensure that they meet the required standards and are functioning correctly.
We recommend doing weekly checks but also have a professional company come in to provide fire door servicing every 6-12 months.
Contact JST Construction
In summary, the importance of fire doors in commercial spaces is beyond belief. They protect people and assets when a fire occurs and provide valuable time to keep the fire at bay. Please make sure you’re being responsible with the building you do business in because there will likely be an awful lot of people and assets that you will need to protect also.
If you need some professional advice then get in touch with us here at JST Construction as we’ve been installing, maintaining and repairing fire doors in commercial spaces for years.
Simply call us 0151 355 9232, message us directly, or use our online contact form.
