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Fire doors which failed tests not third-party accredited
Fire doors which have been withdrawn from sale after test failures were not part of a third-party accreditation scheme, the manufacturer has confirmed
Housing secretary James Brokenshire announced last week that Masterdor had withdrawn its timber and glass reinforced plastic doors from sale after they failed tests.
The company, which has contacted between 100 and 150 customers of the doors, confirmed to Inside Housing this week that they were not subject to third-party accreditation.
Building regulations do not require manufacturers to use a third-party accreditation scheme, but lobbyists have long called on government to make it a requirement.
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Fire doors are required to meet a standard of 30 minutes’ fire resistance, which is tested by placing the door in a gas furnace for half an hour.
The Masterdor doors were successfully tested before being sold, but failed further tests the company commissioned in the aftermath of the Grenfell disaster.
Iain McIlwee, chief executive of the British Woodworking Federation (BWF) which runs a fire door certification scheme, said: “We’ve spent years campaigning that there is a systemic issue [with the quality of fire doors].
“Products are being used on the basis of test reports and that doesn’t give us reassurance that something is consistently made.”
Jon O’Neill, managing director of the Fire Protection Association (FPA), added: “We’ve had concerns about the fire door testing market for some time.”
Third-party accreditation involves a certifying body, overseen by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service, assessing test reports and auditing the quality of products being produced by testing samples.
Around three million doors are certified through the BWF scheme. There are at least five to six million doors in the market as a whole.
In a statement released last week, Masterdor said: “Regrettably, some of the GRP and timber fire door styles – previously tested successfully through an external test house, resulting in the provision of appropriate fire test certificates and assessments – did not meet the 30-minute standard expected.
“Consequently, the decision was made to immediately suspend any further production of Masterdor GRP and timber fire doors until further tests could be conducted, formal test reports were available to review, and the results of further internal investigations could be fully completed.
“All GRP and timber fire doors have also been removed from sale.”
The tests were carried out after Manse Masterdor doors from Grenfell Tower failed Metropolitan Police tests.
Masterdor, a separate company which was set up after the assets of Manse Masterdor were sold in 2014, provided doors from its stock for testing during this process, and carried out further tests after they failed.
Fire doors: a systemic problem?
