Doors for life?

Chiltern Dynamics’ Paul Andrews discusses trends in testing of doors.

In today’s market, demands for guarantees of overall fitness for purpose are increasing. No longer is it enough for a doorset, for example, simply to work at building handover. The building contractor and building owner often want confidence that it will continue to perform well into the warranty period of the building and beyond.

Manufacturers, too, are raising the bar. To gain a competitive advantage they are looking beyond testing of a specific performance attribute, for example security, to find other areas where their product can demonstrate advantages over its competition.

As a UKAS-accredited testing organisation, Chiltern Dynamics is well placed both to observe trends in testing and to provide solutions where none may exist in standards and guidance documents.

Increasingly, we are working with clients who want to prove their product’s performance in more than one area.

As far back as 2004, Chiltern Dynamics developed a Classification for Service Life (CDTM01) test programme, to enable clients to offer more allencompassing evidence of product performance and we have noted a significantly increased demand this year from manufacturers who want
to add this type of test evidence to their credentials.

The CDTM01 test programme incorporates elements from a number of British and European standards, including BS EN 1191: 2000 Windows and Doors. Resistance to repeated opening and closing - Test method, BS EN 1192: 2000 Doors. Classification of strength requirements and DD 171:1987 Guide to specifying performance requirements for hinged or pivoted door, to classify doorsets in terms of duty against a whole range of criteria.

‘Severe duty’ is the most demanding classification, representative of what the standards refer to as the ’frequent violent usage’ doorsets may undergo in a busy school or hospital environment and in our experience clients who opt to undergo the programme are going to be satisfied with nothing less. Evidence suggests that with CDTM01 under their belts, some clients have been able to secure contracts that they might not otherwise have won.

Manufacturers of doorsets designed for use in social housing projects are also among those who need to demonstrate proof of all–round performance. This is another market sector where demand for testing continues to increase, driven by the Secured by Design (SBD) initiative. To tender for any social housing or local authority scheme nowadays, manufacturers require SBD certification and it is interesting to note that it is not only doorset manufacturers who are coming to us for testing, but also hardware manufacturers in partnership with door manufacturers.

Just as the integrity of a fire door can be jeopardised by the addition of hardware outside the scope of the test evidence, so too can security performance be compromised. For hardware manufacturers to be able to claim that they comply with SBD requirements, they must therefore carry out testing of their product, installed into a doorset, to prove that the hardware does not constitute a weakness rather than a strength.

Testing is a key part of any certification programme and as demand for certification increases, so too does demand for performance testing. In addition to a growing demand for certified installation of fire doorsets, there is a view that it is only a matter of time before we see certified installation of external doorsets.

There is no doubt that expectations of products are rising. With an increasing number of manufacturers seeking to differentiate their products by pushing the bar higher, the challenge is for others to keep up.

This trend combined with increasing vigilance from responsible authorities can only be positive for developers and building owners and reassuring for building users and occupiers.