Hot Issue: Maintaining Fire-Rated Doors

I am a door supplier in Gainesville, Florida and I deal with new construction of small to medium sized commercial projects. I find the biggest problem with fire doors is that all the industry professionals are aware of the fire requirements but that rarely gets passed on to the end user of the building.  We, as a supplier spend the time to make sure the door will meet code but then go into a building 6 mos later and there are kickdown door stops mounted to the doors.

Most jurisdictions have adopted the requirement for annual inspections of fire listed doors and frames. The International Fire Door Inspector Association has a completely online learning experience for persons wishing to train in this exciting new field. Our curriculum is accredited by the International Accreditation Services, whose parent company is the International Code Council. Not all jurisdictions follow the NFPA 80 Standard. However, most jurisdictions are adopting the International Fire Code and International Building Code, both of which (depending on issue year) require inspections.

www.ifdia.org also provides an online search for qualified fire door inspectors and the ability to request multiple quotes, review inspection reports and also, notify the AHJ of a pending report for approval.

Just wanted to add for Amanda. What you have experienced regarding property owner's not understanding and following code, is the main driving force for the annual inspection requirement. Not too many people have issue with the door companies. The issue is with the building occupants after they move in.

A great way to stay in compliance with the NFPA 80 requirements is to use the self inspection program offered at www.selffdi.com.  We have made a user friendly way to inspect your own fire doors, saving you the hassle and additional cost of using an outside company each and every year to have your fire doors inspected.  This program is designed so someone who knows nothing about fire doors can complete a fire door inspection.  It is a great way to empower your staff, save money and protect your property.  

@Ryan

Good comment and good to know there is yet another alternative for building and property owners to use in regards to their annual fire door inspections.

However, you may not be aware of the changes in NFPA 80, 2010 Revision, which calls for qualified fire door inspectors.

For years, building and property owners were required to have their doors inspected and maintained, either by an outside contractor, or inside staff person. The entire reason for the newly required annual inspection is due to the lack of interest, or knowledge on the part of building or property owners. Of course, not all property and building owners let the safety of their doors lapse, but enough of them have, which is why the code was changed.

Since the AHJ community has traditionally relied upon building owners maintaining their fire doors, and since historical data shows that such maintenance controls were not being applied, the AHJ community seems, at this point, to want a third party verification of the annual fire door inspection.

Even though NFPA 80 has a Performance Based Option, where the building owner essentially provides their own in-house inspections, the new 2010 will still require those in-house personnel to meet the requirements of the Standard regarding a "Certificate" and knowledge.

The IFDIA is an association dedicated to educating the AHJ, building owner and fire door inspector community. Any building or property owner can contact our offices for information about our building owner guide to fire door inspections.

The guide will help ensure any contracted (third party) inspection is less expensive, since the building owner will have pre-inspected the openings and made efforts to bring the door into compliance.

We continually inspector our doors if we feel we might have a problem. Any modifications done are by a local service company. Over the years we have had to replace fire doors due to issues that presented a less then pleasing appearance. In most cases we have been able to use the same hardware as our local service had the knowledge to replace the door with an exact replacement from the door manufacturer. Over the past five years we have replaced doors at a cost of hundreds of dollars per door. In almost every case the door wood was coming off the door face. The local door shop re-glued the wood but this was only a temporary fix. Ultimately screws would be put into the face of the door while a replacement was on order. I saw the comment by Ryan on this blog and went to the site, Self Fire Door Inspection. I took a leap of  faith and ordered a copy. We followed the information, contacted the manufacturer and long story short we are getting the doors replaced for FREE. The total savings are in the thousands and we are not even paying the installation. I have pointed out discrepancies to our local service company about fire doors they did not know! He asked about the publication and wanted to borrow ours. We are now considering stating our own inspection business for the local area. The problem we found was our local AHJ has not adopted NFPA 80, 2007 or the 2010 version yet. To us it does not matter we will have documentation when it is, and our doors will be to code.

I am not one to ever reply to these type of blogs, but always read them looking for good information. A big thanks to who ever came up with the self door inspection site.

Steven Dennis

Thanks for your comments, they really express some of the main benefits of Self FDI.  As Ray pointed out, it is essential to have a qualified fire door inspector inspect your doors.  This is what Self FDI does.  We provide building management and property owners the knowledge and resources necessary for inspecting  fire doors by themselves or by an existing employee.  This gives property owners the added protection of having someone on site that can inspect the fire doors both annually to comply with NFPA 80, 2010 and throughout the year to avoid the loss of life and property.  

I would encourage every property owner to have someone trained to inspect their fire doors.  This can be accomplished by either sending yourself or a member of your staff to training classes, costing thousands of dollars, not to mention possible travel expenses.  Or like Mr. Dennis you can order our complete inspection kit for just hundreds.