Blog

So, you have renovated your apartment, laid timber flooring and your apartment fire door failed AFSS. This is common and the bad news is the lot owner is responsible and often a replacement the fire door is required. 

Many owners corporations are left to pay the cost for apartment doors that fail. Often this expense can be avoided if the building management processes were better at catching sloppy tradesmanship – or if the process in place was to check if the door was shaved or altered by the company undertaking flooring upgrades in the apartment.

Fire contractors undergoing AFSS inspections fail doors that don’t comply, they don’t know, nor should they care about the apartment renovation history, they just pass or fail when the door does not meet the standard regulations required.

Building Management processes for units undergoing renovations should include managing if a door has been altered or affected by the changes including the doors Fire Resistance Level (FRL). Yes -building managers generally are not qualified to advise if a door pass or fails AFSS, however, any building management company on top of their game should understand the requirements to record all changes in a fire door register including any new compliant tags. 

If your current building management company is not servicing you as a client with an up-to-date fire door schedule, fire collar schedule, emergency lighting schedule and fire penetration schedule, maybe it’s time to review and consider if your building management is just a bum on a seat. That’s usually where you will find them if they are not taking you seriously as the client.