Hi Bob –

Sometimes I add text to the photos that you can only see if you hover your cursor over the photo for a second or two (it’s impossible for me to be completely wordless! 🙂 ). On these photos I mentioned that they couldn’t be fire doors because they don’t have latches, although the doors are in the UK so they may have different rules – that would be interesting to find out. I have shown other doors that weren’t fire rated either, but were still able to help control the spread of smoke and flames. My point is not that doors don’t need to be fire rated…it’s that a CLOSED door will help compartmentalize the building but a WEDGED OPEN door will not. In my opinion, that’s the most dangerous deficiency I see with fire doors.

One of my specwriters and I were talking about these doors yesterday, and whether the pressure created by the fire would be holding the doors closed, or trying to pull them open. I think the pressure would be holding them closed, but maybe someone else can say for sure.

– Lori