The rules for escape doors are short and are more often broken by accident than by intent, usually because a security measure was added after the building was assessed. The fire safety order requires emergency routes and exits to be kept clear, to lead as directly as possible to a place of safety, and to be capable of being opened easily and immediately by any person who may require to use them in an emergency.
Opening direction
Doors on escape routes should open in the direction of escape where the number of people using them makes that necessary, and sliding or revolving doors must not be used for exits specifically intended as emergency exits. In practice the threshold for outward opening is low, and any door serving more than a small number of people is expected to open in the direction people will be moving.
Fastenings, which is where most failures are
The requirement is that the door can be opened easily and immediately, without a key, without special knowledge and in a single action. Panic hardware and emergency exit devices exist to satisfy this. Padlocks, deadbolts, keypads without a fail safe, chains and anything that requires finding a key are all failures, and they appear because somebody had a genuine security problem and solved it in the wrong direction.
Reconciling escape with security
The fire safety order does not require a building to be insecure. It requires the door to open from the inside without a key. Outward security is provided by the hardware type: panic bars with external access control, alarmed exit devices that sound locally when used, and monitored doors. Where a door is being abused, the answer is an alarmed device rather than a lock.
Signage, lighting and what is behind the door
The exit needs signage identifying it and emergency lighting where a loss of normal lighting would leave the route unusable. What lies beyond it matters just as much: a door that opens onto a fenced yard, a stacked pallet or a locked gate has not led to a place of safety, and this is found by walking the route rather than by reading the plan.
Questions people ask about fire exit doors regulations UK
Must every fire exit open outwards?
Where the number of people or the risk makes it necessary, and that catches most exits serving more than a handful of people. Small low risk situations can be different, and the assessment records why.
Are keypads allowed on escape doors?
Only where the door releases and can be opened in a single action without the code from the escape side, typically by a fail safe device that releases on alarm and on power failure.
Can a fire exit be locked when the building is empty?
Yes, provided it cannot be locked while anybody is inside and the arrangement is managed so that it never is. That management is the part that has to be evidenced.
What do the fire door regulations domestic properties UK wide are subject to actually say?
For an ordinary house, very little: fire doors are required where the building regulations guidance asks for them, which is the garage to house door, doors onto a protected stairway in a three storey house or a loft conversion, and nothing else in most two storey homes. For a flat in a block the picture is different, because the flat entrance door is part of the common escape route and, in a building with two or more sets of domestic premises, it falls under the fire safety regime with its own inspection frequency written into law.
So are domestic fire door regulations different from commercial ones?
The performance standard is the same and the trigger is different. A door is tested and certificated the same way whoever owns the building, and what changes is WHERE one is required and who has to inspect it. In a workplace the fire risk assessment decides the frequency and the responsible person carries it. In a house nobody inspects anything and the doors matter at the point of sale or a building control sign off. In a block of flats both apply at once, which is why flat entrance doors generate more argument than any other door in the country.
Is a push pad fire exit acceptable, or does it need a bar?
It depends who uses the building. Emergency exit hardware, which includes a push pad, is for premises where the occupants are trained and familiar with the exits. Panic hardware, the horizontal bar that operates anywhere along its length, is for places where members of the public may be present and may not know the building, and it is designed to work under crowd pressure. So a staff only back door can have a pad and a public hall cannot. Either way the rule is the same: one action, no key, and nothing bolted or padlocked while people are inside.