Posted on: January 23, 2024
ASDMA wish to reinforce the confidence that still applies from the specialist fire door manufacturing sector in the effectiveness of the well-established British Standard BS 476 Part 22 test for the fire resistance validation of timber fire doors which are so dominant in the UK.
There is no reason to question the BS 476 Part 22 test. It is still valid under UK regulations.
There has never been any technical analysis to raise concerns over the method, nor to register concerns over pass results achieved on fire doors using the BS 476 Part 22 test.
The BS 476 Part 22 test has been the foundation for many hundreds of thousands of timber fire doors provided for UK buildings over several decades now since the introduction of the BS test method. No issues have emerged over that long period of consistent use of the test.
Experience in the UK of BS 476 fire resistance testing of timber fire doors is much greater than for the EN method. Very many fire doors in use in UK buildings have been validated on the basis of BS 476 testing without reservations.
The market in the UK for specialist and bespoke timber fire doors is working well and has done so effectively and smoothly for several decades now substantially based on the stability provided by the effective BS 476 Part 22 furnace test, proved by extensive testing.
The BS 476 Part 22 fire resistance test is important for that continued UK market stability.
An important part of that stability is the assurance provided by the third-party product and process certification process that applies in the UK, linking product scrutiny with process auditing at a high level. That UK certification is fundamentally based on BS 476 testing (and cannot easily be transferred to and maintained on another different fire resistance test).
Field of Application (FoA) reports provided on the record of BS testing allow the depth of testing for a fire door group of designs to be easily seen. They provide a summary of relevant and applicable test information with a great deal of detail provided on product design.
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