4
FD30S certified doorsets
052
Q-Mark installation
Summer
holiday installation window
100%
labelled & registered
This project is written up without naming the client. The work, the standards and the approach are exactly as described; the school is not identified.
The challenge
An independent prep school needed four of its fire doors replaced: the double doors into the school office, the library doors, and two toilet doors. The office and library openings are leaf-and-a-half glazed doorsets; the toilets are single leaves. All four needed to be FD30S — thirty minutes' fire resistance with smoke control.
Two things shaped the job. The first was timing: a school cannot have doorsets out of their openings while children are in the building, so the work had to happen in the summer holiday and be finished, signed off and clean before term started. The second was proof. A fire door is only a fire door if it is installed the way it was tested — frame fixings, gaps, ironmongery and the fire stopping around the frame all included — and the school's bursar needed to be able to show that, not just be told it.
What we did
The doorsets were installed under our BM TRADA Q-Mark scheme 052 certification for fire door installation, certificate 4515, with the work carried out during the summer holiday while the school was closed. Each doorset is a manufacturer-certified FD30S assembly, installed to that manufacturer's installation instructions and within its tested scope.
The gap between each frame and the wall was fire-stopped with a fire-rated foam and acrylic sealant system specified for the doorset, and photographed before the architraves went back on — because once they are on, nobody can see it again.
Every doorset carries its manufacturer's certification label and our Q-Mark installer label, and every one is entered on the scheme's Record of Installation Activities, signed off by our Approved Person. Each was QR-tagged in Onetrace with photographs taken before, during and after installation, so the record sits against the door itself.
While on site we also fitted a new steel fire exit door. It is an external, non-fire-rated door — so it was recorded as outside the Q-Mark scheme rather than being given a label it has no right to. Being clear about what is and is not certified is part of the job.
The outcome
The school went back in September with four certified FD30S doorsets, each one labelled, registered and traceable to the installer and the scheme, and a record the bursar can put in front of a fire risk assessor, an insurer or an inspector.
Before work started, the school signed the scheme's procedures acceptance, so it knew exactly what certified installation would and would not cover. It is a small job by number of doors. It is the same standard, the same evidence and the same certification as any airport or museum — which is the point of third-party certification.
Illustrative — project photography subject to permission.
Related
Need the same evidence for your estate?
Tell us the building and roughly how many doorsets or penetrations are in it and we will come back with a fixed price. Call 020 8769 8869 or send the details over.