Fire Performance Assessments

Assessments are appraisals of the potential fire performance of a product.

When manufacturing individual doors to customer requirements it is often necessary to use assessments which are based on, and use test evidence and test reports to validate details which are similar to, but not always identical to those tested. A valid assessment should be compiled by a person whom has had comprehensive experience in the range of tests to all relevant fire testing standards. Approved Document B recognizes and permits the use of an assessor who’s expert opinion is considered as being of equal status to a test report. This invariably means that assessments are best carried out by the testing laboratory themselves or their agents.

Both BS and EN tests rely on the testing of an individual test specimen to ascertain the fire performance of the design. Both BS and the EN test reports detail the behavior of the test specimen during the test. An example of where an assessment would be applicable could include where a door when tested achieves an overrun on the test period and continues to satisfy the test criteria by a reasonable margin. In such case, it may be possible to have the door assessed making possible the manufacture doors of slightly larger dimensions than that tested. This would of course depend on the performance of the door under test and the cause of the eventual failure.