It is so important that any emergency exit, or ‘panic’ doors are properly specified and relevance placed on the users of the doors. In any building there are doors which may be used by the general public and then other doors which are only used by staff and personnel who would be made aware of panic exit routes and other emergency procedures. The doors in the building should work for all and ensure the fastest escape when there is a fire or other emergency.
Common examples of environments where emergency exit doors are used:
- Hospitals, care homes and clinics
- Escape routes in schools, universities and training centres
- Public administration buildings
- Stadiums, arenas, show and events buildings
- Shopping centres, airports, hotels and restaurants
It is a relatively complex and highly engineered process to construct a high quality steel doorset which is not only secure when closed but also easily opened when required for emergency. Many low quality emergency doors will simply be a standard door with some ‘panic hardware’ fitted but less consideration of the overall finished ‘doorset’ and its specification.
Many people also confuse fire exit doorsets with fire rated doors and they are not the same, but some buildings will specify fire rated emergency exit doors, depending on the nature of the building use. A fire exit door should generally be certified as an external rated doorset as a minimum requirement as it should be preventing rain and wind from entering the building as a minimum performance, so should be rated as such. Adding other performance features is possible for any building which might require it. For example most emergency exit doors are external doors and therefore why not have enhanced security, insulation and acoustic properties too, along with maybe a vision panel section for light or vision, depending on the location.
Specifications:
- Made to measure sizes up to 2900mm wide x 3000mm high
- Huge choice of hardware for compliance in different environments
- Any RAL or BS colour finish and marine grade powder coat finish options
- Push bar or Touch Bar opening handle options
- Panic locks in accordance with BS EN 1125
- Emergency exit locks in accordance with BS EN 17
- Insulated, acoustic, fire rated and other specification options where required