Fire and smoke seals, some tips on fitting them.
In addition to fitting effective fire doors it is important to know how and when to fit fire and smoke seals to a door, these are known as Intumescent strips or seals.
1. This process is tricky unless you are an experienced diy enthusiast and although described below it may be best left to a professional.
2. For clarification, be aware that fire doors are available in 30, 60 and 120 minute ratings and intumescent seals must be suitably matched for the doors rating, these seals are also available in differing colours for matching to the door veneer, maybe less about matching and more about contrasting.
3. An electric "router" is required and the router bit must be of the exact width to match the breadth of the intumescent seal, also be aware if you are fitting a seal which is combined with a brush type strip that you may have to adjust the door down very slightly in size before fitting the seal.
4. Set up the router guard/guide so that the seal is machined in the centre of the door edge thickness, set the router bit so that the depth of the router bit cuts deeply enough for the body of the seal to sit flush with the door edge.
5. Cut the seal in length to match the door height, Intumescent fire seals normally have a peal off strip on the back edge which then reveals a sticky surface, after removing the peal of strip, press the seal firmly in to the routered channel.
6. Fire seals are normally fitted to the two side edges of the door and also the top.
7. In new build situations the fire and smoke seals may be fitted in the door frame rather than the door but most of our customers are fitting intumescent fire and smoke seals retrospectively.