Fire doors face certification barriers due uncertainty

Research undertaken by the British Woodworking Federation (BWF) with the Fire Door Alliance programme revealed that 27% of specialists who work on specifying, installing and maintaining fire doors view uncertainty over the data to demonstrate performance as a barrier to third-party certification. Cost was noted, at 29%, down from 42% in 2023.

The evidence gap is a significant issue, particularly for glazed screens, where the certified item is not just the glass, but the entire assembly, including the frame, glass, beads, gaskets, seals, ironmongery, and junctions.

Integrity, Insulation, and the Gap Between Them

A fire-resisting screen performs two separate functions: holding the fire back and stopping heat from passing through. Under BS EN 13501-2, these are two separate classifications: E covers integrity alone, while EI covers both, with a limit on temperature rise across the screen.

The distinction between E and EI classifications is important, as a screen described as offering 60 minutes of protection tells a specifier little without further context. An E60 screen and an EI60 screen behave differently in an escape corridor and have different implications for adjacent construction. The difference between these classifications is significant because it affects how the screen will perform in a fire.

What a Certificate Covers, and What It Doesn’t

A fire test produces a report describing one configuration, tested one way, and the classification report turns that into a rating. However, neither covers every variant a project needs, which is where a field of application assessment comes in, setting out the range the tested evidence can reasonably extend across.

Third-party certification adds a further layer, with schemes such as Certifire assessing the test evidence, defining the certified scope, and auditing factory production control continually. A rating quoted without a certificate reference and a defined scope means little, as there is no way to tell if it is accurate from the datasheet alone. They provide a way to verify the claims made by manufacturers.

Transparency in Certification

How openly a manufacturer publishes certification material is a reasonable indicator of their commitment to transparency. Radii Planet Group, for example, publishes the tested scope for each system alongside the specification downloads for every rating variant, allowing the evidence to be checked before a system is committed to. This approach helps to build trust with specifiers and installers.

Where certification information proves hard to obtain, the difficulty is itself informative, and may indicate a lack of transparency or a gap in the certification process. It is essential for manufacturers to be transparent about their certification processes to avoid any confusion or misinformation.

Several parts of a glazed screen, such as hinges, closers, locks, and handles, sit outside what product literature covers and must have been tested in the configuration proposed. Substituting a similar-looking handle late on can invalidate the evidence for the entire doorset. The British Woodworking Federation emphasizes the importance of considering all components of a glazed screen when evaluating its fire performance.

In fit-outs with raised access floors, the compartment line continues below the finished floor, and if the rated screen sits above an unsealed gap, no amount of certification above floor level changes that. Three key requests can help ensure that the certification process is thorough: the certificate number and certifying body, the classification report reference and field of application, and the proposed configuration, including ironmongery and junction details. These requests can help to identify any potential issues with the certification process.

Raised at Stage 4, these queries are routine and can help shape the specification while it is still open. Left until materials are ordered, they become a variation, and pressure may run towards accepting an assessment rather than changing the system.

Approved Document B has been under continuous review by the Building Safety Regulator since December 2024, with further amendments due at the end of September. The direction is consistent: less reliance on assumption, more on demonstrable evidence. For glazed screens, this means treating fire performance as a property of a complete assembly with a paper trail behind it. The British Woodworking Federation welcomes these changes, as they will help to improve the fire safety of buildings.