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Topic
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A fire safety service person had to access to my unit block at 7.00am this morning in order to “measure” the front door of my apartment. This was not a practical joke or scam, it had to be done because apparently the whole door needed replacing because it wasn’t fire safety compliant.
I had not been told that the door was faulty. Upon inspection it was ascertained that there was nothing wrong with the door except that the secondary passage lock (not the main deadlock) had been decommissioned – I had done this to eliminate the extra effort of having to unlock two locks, at the same time when entering my apartment. The service person said that I had to have the two locks working – despite me saying that “surely if there was a fire in my apartment the least amount of locks/knobs one has to negotiate in order to escape the raging inferno the better”?
I then asked why the whole door had to be replaced, and not just the lock, he replied that “the door has asbestos and therefore cannot be touched by anyone” – it is a wooden door!
The situation has been resolved, I will replace the lock, supposedly with the risk of me contracting mesothelioma.
Can someone out there in “strata safety land” explain why the secondary door lock/knob has to be working? when negotiating both it and the deadlock would use up precious seconds in attempting an escape from my flat.
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I’m not sure – fire regulations are mysterious things, however it is not an issue of whether your doors are faulty, but whether they comply with the standards that currently apply. These standards include things such as door thickness and any glass used in a vision panel.
In relation to asbestos – doors manufactured up to the mid 1980s had an asbestos core, while a door may be wooden it is usually hollow and filled with asbestos. If people want to make alterations to an existing door you are not allowed to do that if there is asbestos in it, and apparently that includes changes to the locks!
And if I can ad my two cents worth, while it may seem unlikely and illogical, the “working locks” scenario could conceivably be considered dangerous if someone, in a panic, was trying to unlock a lock that wasn’t locked to begin with.
For some reason I am reminded of a colleague who was staying in a hotel in Sweden and called down to the concierge desk because he couldn’t get his room door to open, no matter how hard he tugged and pulled and fiddled with the lock. A porter arrived and opened the door with ease … outwards.
The guest had arrived exhuasted the night before and hadn’t noticed what any fan of Scandinavian TV drama will tell you – doors open the other way there.
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