At Doors by Nalley of Lake Norman, Inc., we know that your business is important to you. An important part of any business is maintaining employee safety and an essential part of that is fire safety. Your facilities should be equipped with fire safety measures such as alarms, sprinklers, smoke detectors, and fire rated doors. While most people are familiar with the first three items on this list, many people are less familiar with fire rated doors and what makes them important for fire safety. To fill this gap in your knowledge, we have put together this overview of fire rated doors and what they do.
Fire rated doors are designed to stop or impede fire from spreading from one part of a structure into another. For example, if a fire starts in the kitchen, closed fire rated doors will cause the fire to take longer to spread into the dining room. Depending on the size and layout of your facilities, you may want to use fire rated doors at multiple points to provide maximum protection.
Fire rated doors can be made of many materials, including metal and wood, and are given a rating for how long each door will delay a fire–e.g. 20 minutes, 90 minutes, 3 hours. These ratings are determined by standardized laboratory testing in which each model of door is put into a large furnace to measure how it withstands fire. If you want to ensure that your facilities, employees, and customers stay safe in the event of a fire, call our team at Doors by Nalley of Lake Norman, Inc. to learn more about our fire rated doors.