Self Closing Fire Doors – Issues in HMO’s
Published 10/02/2013 
As all good HMO Landlords know, it is compulsory to have self closing fire doors.
Now, I’m not disparaging of their purpose in an HMO – protection for the rest of the house should a tenant start a bonfire in their room and, if the fire starts in the communal areas, protection for the tenant whilst he sleeps like a baby through the fire/smoke alarms. What really gets me and the tenants is the self closers.
These are mandatory to pass your licence and I’ve experienced both chain and hydraulic types and, if pressed, would have to choose the chain variety.
Chain based self closing fire doors
Hydraulic Self Closing Fire Doors
If you’re a tenant and have run out of wardrobe space, where do you hang your coat? On the self closing arm of course!
The hanger then gets caught in the arm and, hey presto, the door stops self closing.
To me they also seem more powerful: my Granny is in a dementia home and they have fire doors on all the bedrooms (fair enough, the residents are far too frail to jump out of the window in the event of a fire and aren’t allowed to escape from the building anyway), but she really does struggle to open her door and needs a carer to hold it open for her whilst she walks gingerly into the hall – try doing THAT whilst pushing a walking frame!
Anyway, self closing fire doors also come with other shortcomings: new tenants into an HMO will on average forget to grab their keys before the self closers kick in. It can takes them two or three times of being shut out before they learn!
The call comes in from another tenant’s mobile and I try to get there as quickly as possible only to find the tenant in his/her dressing gown clutching a toilet roll and sporting a sheepish or annoyed look. Sometimes, they don’t bother with the dressing gown and are huddled in a foetal position on the top stair looking very sorry for themselves.
I’m researching various solutions to this as it makes it very difficult for me to go away.
Tenants tend to wait until I’m on a train, plane, car heading OUT of the area to let me know they’re locked out or manage to do it late at night on the weekend when I’m otherwise engaged at the pub. One idea has been to install a security key safe for each room which individual codes, so the tenant can access their spare key without having to call me. This is possible and I have one outside my front door which is useful on the occasions when myself or my children have accidentally left our keys somewhere.
Here’s another solution : train the tenants to put the thumb turns (Yale locks) on the latch when they go for a pee!
Do you have any others ideas?
About HMOLandlady
How a novice landlady found herself teaching complete strangers how to share the kitchen nicely! HMO Landlady fell into the world of letting houses out on a room by room basis back in 2007. Having made lots of mistakes, unintentionally fallen foul of the law on the odd occasion, been taken for a complete ride by some tenants and wondered what the hell she was doing most the time, she balances being the main carer of 3 children with the ongoing needs of 15 tenants across 3 houses. The divide is often blurred, but the skill set remains the same."
-
Simon says:
10/02/2013 at 11:36
-
Lynne Davis says:
10/02/2013 at 13:28
-
Ash Zuberi says:
10/02/2013 at 20:54
-
Mark Alexander says:
10/02/2013 at 20:59
-
Mary Latham says:
10/02/2013 at 21:36
-
Mark says:
11/02/2013 at 12:08
-
HMO Landlady says:
11/02/2013 at 22:23
-
Mark Alexander says:
12/02/2013 at 03:20
-
Richard Lord- housing audit services says:
15/03/2013 at 20:48
-
Freda Blogs says:
16/03/2013 at 10:12
-
Richard Lord- housing audit services says:
16/03/2013 at 14:39
-
Freda Blogs says:
16/03/2013 at 14:46
-
Mary Latham says:
16/03/2013 at 20:42
-
Paul Barrett says:
17/03/2013 at 10:45
Leave a commentDon’t use Yale latches on doors in HMO’s is the sImple solution. Fire doors in care homes is a totally different issue – not sure of the answer – maybe a magnetically operated hold open device?
Can’t you get thumb-turn locks that need to be locked with a key from the outside (like the cylinder locks for uPVC doors)?
We use special security locks which essentialy are thumb locks, we never use chain based or Hydraulic systems. Their is a better option which has not been mentioned. In 5 years operation we have never had a tenant lock themselves out of their room or their house. In fact we had one tenant who could not figure out the one key system and called us up stating we had forgot to issue him his room key and he could not lock his room. Once we had informed him to go home and try the door key we never heard from him again….
I have also posted this article to your HMO Facebook Page Ash, which by the way is also an excellent resource for HMO Landlords which I would stronly recommend them to “Like”. Thanks for commenting on both threads. Link to Ash’s Facebook page here >>> http://www.facebook.com/groups/housesofmultipleoccupancy/553989364620552/
I also use thumb turn locks which can be opened on the inside without a key, do not lock until you operate the thumb turn or with a key from the outside. The first benefit I found is that they cannot lock themselves out of the room nor do they forget their keys because they need them to lock the door on the way out. They come in both mortice and “yale” style locks. This has saved me many journeys to let them in.
I use the chain style closers called Perko and I have had them in my properties since the 80′s. I have only had to replace 4 in all those years with 4/5 in each of several HMO properties.
I use thumb turn locks on all my doors including the final exit doors back and front and this means that if there were a fire and they had to get out in a rush they would not be searching for a key. They are quite expensive you they are often on an offer at some suppliers – worth Googling.
Follow me on Twitter @landlordtweets
Here in Oxford the licensing authority no longer require self-closers on room doors although they still do on kitchen and or living room doors that isolate stairwells from high risk fire areas.
It transpires that the main driver for this shift in policy was to do with the level of complaints received by the noise team from neighbours who were disturbed by slamming doors at all hours of the day and night! Moral of the tale……….reducing complaints supersedes safety of tenants?
Thanks for all the advice, everyone. I’ll look into the thumb turns which mean you have to lock them from the outside. It’s a constant learning curve…….!
Svetlana and I stayed in one of our flats this weekend. It was only then I realised these are the locks my brother has fitted to all of our flats.
I feel the need to add to the debate from the position of requiring 30 minutes self closing fire doors in the first place as they are not a requirement in all HMO bedrooms. The Housing Act 2004 does not require fire doors in all HMO’s – the requirement to provide a protected route is on a risk based approach. It may be worth reading the national safety guidance carefully to establish whether you really need fire resisting doors with self closers in the first place. Not knowing whether the HMO is a three storey bedsit type or a two storey shared house type licensed HMO as part of an additional scheme it is hard to make a specific comment. For example the following general comments are lifted out of the fire safety guidance.- In existing 3 storey shared houses of low risk it may be possible to accept existing walls and partitions if 20 minutes fire resistance can be achieved. -If the management is good, the tenants present an average or lower risk and the house is of a conventional layout you may not need a 30 minute protected route. You may need to challenge your LA’s standards to ask them to justify why they are requiring self closing 30 minutesfire doors
I was required by the Local Authority to install a self closing fire door to the kitchen of my 2 storey 4 bed student house – at some considerable expense. I knew it would never be left closed (and I think the Council rep secretly agreed), and so it has proved. It is always left wedged open….no amount of telling, wedge removal or notices put up seem to work.
Freda-There is simply no automatic requirement for a fire door to the kitchen in a low risk student shared HMO, if sound well constructed doors were in the frame in the first place. The requirement for a fire door has to be part of an overall fire risk assessment after taking into consideration factors such as -is the house layout traditional with the escape route not passing through a risk area, what was the existing door, ( if glass or hollow core then i agree they have no place as part of kitchen separation) what alarm system is in place, are the tenants strangers, are there any obvious extra risky behaviours ( candles, smoking in the house etc). If the Council cant prove the additional burden of risk and the is no category 1 hazard then I cant really see how they can serve an improvement notice and hope to defend it in the RPT. There is no longer a box to tick that equates kitchen with fire door.
Like always I dont know the house, this is a general comment based on a typical two storey low risk HMO..
I woud suggest that if you have the time and inclination you get a copy of the of the LACORS national fire safety guidance and familiarise yourself so that you are in a postion of strength to argue future requirement for unnecessary improvements.
Thanks Richard, thats helpful to know. I am about to do a refurb including reconfiguration of the layout and will need to get the Council back in for re- accreditation, so will do as you suggest beforehand.
Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 Part 2 Article 8 The onus to ensure that the building is safe falls on the “responsible person” – the landlord – as does the requirement responsibility to carry out and record a Fire Risk Assessment under Article 9. In the West Midlands EHOs still want to see self closing 1/3 hour fire doors with intumescent strips even on two story HMO’s shared by young healthy students.I have had fire doors on every room and at the foot of the stairs on my student HMOs since the 80’s and in those days they were very expensive, far more than they cost now. I have never regretted the investment because some tenants are reckless and I want to take every precaution to save them from themselves and each other. I also have interlinked hard wired smoke detectors in every room and hall and landing and an interlinked heat detector in the kitchen. A life is worth more than the money it costs to fit this equipment and over all these years the ongoing cost has been very little. When I did have a fire about 10 years ago not only did everyone get out safely the damage was contained in the living room where the fire started and reduced the down time and insurance claimNew fire doors look much smarter than the original Victorian wooden doors too.Follow me on Twitter@landlordtweets
Regarding the problem of fire doors being wedged open.
There are electronic fire door actuators which via magnets can disengage and the door closes.
Obviously there mustn’t anything to sop the doors closing.
Hotels use these and they are highly effective.
As soon as the fire alarm goes off all the fire doors close.
I speak from former professional experience that this system works very well and stops smoke logging immediately.
I can’t tell you the problems we had with cleaner wedging fire door open and then forgetting to unwedge them when the fire alarm actuated!!
You can also get electronic door stops which bolt to the bottom of the door.
You kick down the rubber bolt into the floor which then retracts when the alarm sound goes off.
Having these systems allow the doors to be held open but can close when the alarm actuates.
Not sure whether these systems are compliant for HMO’s but they are far better than leaving the tenants with no alternative than to use wedges to keep the fire door open;………………….even if they shouldn’t.
Hotels accepted the perennial problem they had and fitted magnetic fire door stays.
They work very well.
Every fire door that is wedged open could attract a fine of £1000!!
I think that is why the hotels introduced them as they could not risk the fines.
We always used to come back with pockets of wedges; but we warned them rather than fine them; even though they could have been prosecuted.
All the Fire Service wants is the relevant protection measures to be used as they do work.
Even a bog standard door that is CLOSED can hold back fire for about 20 mins.
That is why whenever there is a fire it is an ideal practice to CLOSE EVERY door.
It makes evacuation and consequent fire-fighting so much easier; believe me!!