Run your thumb round the frame of any flat door in your building.
Do you feel a rubbery brush or a thin strip let into the edge? Or just paint?
Painted seals are the most common seal fault we are sent to. A decorator has done the frame and the door in one go and gone straight over the top.
Two jobs, one groove
Intumescent strips swell when they get hot and close the gap round the door. Smoke seals stay soft and stop cold smoke getting through before the fire grows.
Some doors have a single combined strip. Some have two separate ones. We find out what the door was built with before we cut anything out.
Fitting new ones
The old strip comes out. The groove is cleaned down to bare timber, and dust from the old adhesive goes with it.
A new strip is pressed in along the full run, round the corners and under the latch. It has to be continuous, with no gap where the lock is.
Then we check the door still closes on the new seal. A strip that is too thick will stop the latch catching.
Which seal goes on which door
It depends on the door, and a different strip cannot be put in simply because it fits the groove. The right one is picked from the door's label or its manufacturer information.
If the door has no label and nothing on the top edge, we say so and note it in the report. Without that, nobody can say what the right strip is.
Stevenage
We fitted smoke seals to the doors of a block of flats in Stevenage. It is a short job per door.
Glazed doors
Glass in a fire door has its own seal at the edge, which swells too. If it has been painted over or has fallen out, we replace it while we are there.
Questions we get asked
Can I just scrape the paint off?
Gently, in a very light coat, you might. A thick coat usually means the strip is damaged beneath it. It is safer to replace it.
Will new seals stop the door closing?
Not if they are fitted properly. We test the closing after each one.
Send it with the postcode and we will come back with a fixed price per door.
Get a price