Carpentry & Joinery

Is a kitchen fire door required for a small, low risk two -storey shared HMO Victorian house?

Anonymous user 23/02/2024 - 3.43 PM

It’s a shared Victorian house of no more than two storey. A house with kitchen and living room on the ground floor and bathroom on the first floor. The whole house is let to four tenants, A, B, C and D, who have exclusive possession of the whole house. The house will therefore be used as a private dwelling by A, B, C and D jointly, as domestic premises and the FSO (Fire Safety Order 2005) will not apply. It presents no additional risk factors then no high standard of fire precautions may be necessary, having regard to the fire risk assessment. In addition, there’ll be interlinked smoke alarms on each of the floor levels and in the lounge and a heat alarm in the kitchen. This will reduce the hazards or chances that may cause a fire and reduce the risk factors, then a fire door in the kitchen shouldn’t be necessary. I believe that having the kitchen door closed, • presents additional risk factors • the tenants won’t be able to react quickly to stop a burning item that may cause a fire before it spreads throughout the kitchen or leave the house quickly before fire spreads throughout the whole house But if the kitchen door’s open, then the tenants can smell the smoke or see a burning item in the kitchen, they’re more likely to be able to stop that ‘burning item ’ before fire spreads throughout the kitchen and then the whole house. Among our friends, family and including ourselves we’ve experienced first-hand that we’ve avoided ‘possible’ kitchen fires on many occasions by simply being able to smell burning food and to stop the ‘burning item’ because we’ve got distracted or we’ve forgotten cooking appliances on the cooker or in the microwave.