Fire rated door requirements?
Fire rated door requirements?
When are fire rated doors required in a multi family unit ? Is this determined by the number of units ?
Re: Fire rated door requirements?
Fire rated doors are generally required by local code in cases where it is desirable to isolate one area from another for purposes of preventing the spread of a fire. In residential use, you will probably find a fire rated door at the entry to a unit from a Common Area like a hallway, at the entry to a unit from a garage, and so on. Fire rated doors are more likely to also be self-closing – the idea being that we want that door to close and latch every time we open it, so it can function as intended to prevent a fire from spreading.
As far as the inspector is concerned, he or she is NOT enforcing code – he or she is only observing that the door is or is not fire rated and that it is or is not damaged or inoperable in some way. As a REAC inspector we would never cite a door as being “not fire rated as required,” we would not go there. However – let’s say we find a door that has been replaced… the door frame has a fire rating tag, indicating that there was a fire rated door here originally, but now we can see this was replaced with a non-fire-rated door. In that rare circumstance, we would cite this as a missing door.
As far as the inspector is concerned, he or she is NOT enforcing code – he or she is only observing that the door is or is not fire rated and that it is or is not damaged or inoperable in some way. As a REAC inspector we would never cite a door as being “not fire rated as required,” we would not go there. However – let’s say we find a door that has been replaced… the door frame has a fire rating tag, indicating that there was a fire rated door here originally, but now we can see this was replaced with a non-fire-rated door. In that rare circumstance, we would cite this as a missing door.