How to Make Fire Doors Easier to Use

There's no doubt that fire doors are an important feature for anyone concerned about halting the potential spread and damage from fire in their building. The problem is that the same characteristics that make a door ideal for preventing the spread of fires also tend to make the door unattractive and difficult to use. Fortunately, if you want to find ways to make fire doors more appealing for common use, there are some options available.

Wooden Fire Doors

Most fire doors are made of metal, but there are some types of wooden doors that actually have a rating for preventing fires. Some of these doors are wood only while others can be made of a mixture of steel and wood.

One of the jobs of fire doors is to shield people from high heat. Temperatures even at the ground level of a building can rise as high as 600 degrees at eye level. Traditionally, only metal was able to withstand this type of heat. These metal fire doors tended to all look the same as well.

However, these days there are a number of fire-rated wood doors that have passed tests from the National Fire protection Association. You can now get fire-rated doors made of wood that have every type of paint grade you can think of, and every design including even exotic woods and custom jobs like complete French doors.

If anyone who has to use your building thinks the standard fire door is ugly, you no longer have to stick with it as a model.

Smart Fire Door Holders

Standard metal fire doors are notoriously heavy and difficult to open. Unfortunately, it's also often recommended that they always stay closed. An open fire door can't stop the spread of fires, after all.

The problem is that these heavy fire doors can discourage people from entering buildings that have a lot of them inside. They can hamper free movement throughout the building. In addition, many people might prop open the fire doors, rendering them useless during a real fire.

One solution to this issue is to use smart fire door holders. These holders will keep fire doors open during normal operation so people can pass right through them without having to struggle with opening them each time.

But, when a fire alarm goes off, these smart holders can detect the alarm and release the fire doors. This lets the doors close and deter flames when an actual fire breaks out. For more information, talk to a professional like All Kind Door Services Ltd.


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