/// Passive fire protection in Sevenoaks
Sevenoaks district is mostly countryside and green belt, with Sevenoaks town, Swanley, Westerham and Edenbridge as its main centres. The buildings here are often older and larger than in most of our areas: period houses divided into apartments, independent schools with boarding houses, care homes in converted country houses, and small blocks of flats in the towns.
Large older buildings that have been extended several times can have complicated fire separation. We cover the whole district and work with owners, bursars, care home managers and managing agents to put it right.
Fire doors in Sevenoaks
Care homes and boarding houses depend on fire doors closing reliably, often onto long corridors where residents or pupils sleep. Many use hold-open devices linked to the alarm, which need testing too. We inspect doors and their hold-open or free-swing devices, keep them working through maintenance and fit new fire doorsets where original doors can't be upgraded.
Fire stopping and compartmentation in Sevenoaks
When a country house becomes a care home or a period house becomes apartments, new services are threaded through old walls, floors and roof spaces. Gaps around them, and open voids between old and new parts of the building, let fire spread unseen. We find and seal them with tested fire stopping, and enclose meters and intakes on escape routes.
What we check in Sevenoaks buildings
- Bedroom and corridor doors in care homes and boarding houses
- Hold-open and free-swing devices linked to the fire alarm
- Junctions between original buildings and later extensions
- Roof spaces and floor voids in period houses divided into apartments
- Plant rooms, kitchens and laundries in larger buildings
Rules that apply to Sevenoaks buildings
Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005
Requires a fire risk assessment for the common parts of blocks of flats and all non-domestic buildings, including flat entrance doors since the Fire Safety Act 2021.
BS 8214:2016
The code of practice for specifying, installing and maintaining timber fire door assemblies.
Approved Document B
Requirement B3: compartment walls and floors, with every service opening through them fire-stopped.
Nearby areas we cover: Bromley Tunbridge Wells Dartford