Loddon Door Services Limited based near Reading have been supplying bespoke steel doors to utility companies for many years to address not only fire protection (up to 6 hours on single doors) and security issues but also those arising from floods. In July of 2014 a double door version of the Loddon Flood Door was tested to PAS 1188-1 for flood resistance by the BRE at their facility at Garston.
The floods of last winter were not a unique, once in a lifetime event. Since 2007 insurance claims for flood damage in the UK are estimated to be over £3 billion pounds. Many insurance companies are now starting to offer flood cover based on the actual level of risk. This is focussing attention on flood protection products and the standards that assess them. One of the foremost of these is PAS 1188-1 which refers to Building Aperture products and was developed in 2009. Among other things it provides test methods for evaluating the effectiveness of doors to withstand a static head of water at 3 depths up to 1460mm which is close to 5ft.
The Loddon Flood Door consists of a powder coated modified fire rated metal door with a bespoke flashing and seals to suit the structural opening. The door is fitted with a Von Duprin 9957 3-point panic bar that provides both security and access control.
Testing was conducted at 3 depths and assessed against a maximum allowable leakage of 7.1 litres per hour. At a depth of 487mm the actual leakage was only 0.24 litres per hour. At 973mm it was only 0.49 litres and at the full depth of 1460mm it was still only 0.58 litres per hour. The BRE declared the doors had passed the test using the criteria in place at the time, however, in a fast moving world PAS 1188 has already been updated to reduce the allowed leakage levels by half. The Loddon Flood doors still achieved the new more demanding requirements with ease.
A PAS is a Publicly Available Specification. This is a sponsored fast-track standard driven by the needs of the client organizations and developed according to guidelines set out by BSI. Key stakeholders are brought together to collaboratively produce a BSI-endorsed PAS that has all the functionality of a British Standard for the purposes of creating management systems, product benchmarks and codes of practice.
Numerous utility premises, including electricity sub-stations, have been fitted with Loddon’s commercial steel door solutions to protect against floods and fires as well as providing security and access control for the end user and enabling vital utility services to continue to operate in even in the most adverse conditions.
For further information contact Loddon Door Services Limited on 0118 934 4034, visit www.loddondoors.co.uk or email info@loddondoors.co.uk
