What are the key points for using steel fire doors?

Steel fire doors are moderately priced, but they are heavy, difficult to open, and have a plain design, lacking in aesthetics. As a result, they are often used in industrial buildings and buildings of general civilian standards, or in areas of buildings with low aesthetic requirements and low pedestrian traffic on a daily basis (such as machine rooms, garages, etc.). In contrast, wooden fire doors are lighter in weight, more flexible in opening and closing, and have better decorative appearances with more intricate designs, although they are more expensive. They are commonly used in medium to high civilian buildings or important occasions within buildings. The general maximum opening size for each fire door is approximately: height 3.3m, width - single door 1.1m, double door 3.0m. In engineering design, in addition to strictly following the specifications for the location, part, width, grade, and opening direction of the fire doors, attention should also be paid to:

Fire doors are typically located along evacuation routes (such as stairwells, vestibules, corridors, etc.), and a slight oversight in the detailed design of the building plan can lead to doors blocking the evacuation path and reducing its effective width, which goes against the basic requirements for staff evacuation. This issue is particularly pronounced at turns in evacuation routes and in high-rise residential buildings, and it should be addressed and avoided.

Under certain conditions, when fire doors are installed to adjacent fire compartments in high-rise buildings, it is permissible for each compartment to have only one safety exit. It should be noted that due to the unidirectional opening of fire doors, if both adjacent compartments have only one safety exit, two fire doors should be installed on the firewall and opened in opposite directions to meet the needs of mutual evacuation between the compartments.

The commonly used fire doors are normally closed, with the door leaves always in a closed position, requiring staff to manually open them and then they automatically close. Installing push-bar hardware can significantly speed up evacuation. However, normally closed fire doors in public corridors have drawbacks such as affecting ventilation and lighting, obstructing views, and causing inconvenience during normal use. Poor management can lead to frequent damage and malfunction of the door closers and hardware, posing safety hazards. The normally open fire doors address these issues by keeping the door leaves in an open position with a hold-open device, which automatically releases during a fire, restoring the same function as the normally closed doors. Due to the addition of hold-open devices and automatic release systems, and sometimes the need for integration with automatic alarm systems, the use of normally open fire doors will inevitably increase construction costs. Current fire codes do not mandate a specific opening and closing method for fire doors, allowing designers to consider the building's scale, the characteristics of the use, the management needs of the building users, and economic factors when choosing and determining the type. Future inquiries will be made to find a suitable fire door manufacturer.