Fire door ratings are as important as the fire door itself. It gives you an ample amount of time to prepare for the worst and most of the time, when the fire outbreaks will be solved. Here are some reasons why you need to give importance to these things.

Fire is in a way, a good type of energy as long as it can be controlled and properly applied and handled. The reality is that most of our comforts these days are pretty much impossible without fires. In fact fire is considered by many as both a friend and an enemy as it can be useful in a minute, and the next, it is already causing severe damage to both life ad properties.

Fires are very hard to control and once it picks up its momentum, it can demolish everything in its path and this is one thing that we do not want to happen inside our homes, apartment buildings or even office buildings. This is the reason why governing bodies have created certain building codes and this paved the way to the installation of fire doors with the right and proper fire door rating to ensure that everyone who occupies a certain structure is completely safe whenever fires happen.

Fire doors are made from very strong materials that are coated with classified chemicals to make them fire proof. They are then tested rigorously until their rating is finally defined. It is very much recommended that you become aware of these ratings as this can be the difference between safety and danger; the difference between life and death.

Fire door rating is also defined as the time that the fire door is able to withstand the fire. Remember that the fire door is not designed to withstand the flames indefinitely as the extreme heat caused by fire can make its materials weak after a certain time threshold-that is the rating.  The ratings can be between 30-120 minutes. After this certain time elapses and still the fire has not been put out, the door is bound to give in.

For instance, you installed a fire door that is labeled as FD30. The numbers that follow the "FD" label is the number of minutes that the door can survive the fire. Thus, if it's an FD 30, it tells people that they have less than 30 minutes to spend evacuating since this door can shut down tightly that no smoke or heat can escape to safety or to another room.

Nevertheless, presence of mind a great deal of common sense is greatly needed if you are trying to escape a burning building. So it is highly advised as well that every now and then, the occupants of the building are subjected to fire drills and must be familiar with the labels, the fire exits, the floor plans, where to grab the extinguishers and such so that whenever fire happens, there are no panics and evacuation is done safely and in an organised manner with the help of fire doors.

So when purchasing a fire door, make sure that you are aware of its fire door rating. The higher the rating is, the better opportunity you have to escape to safety. And most importantly, make sure that the fire doors are always regularly checked by licensed and professional inspectors to make sure that it is in good condition when it is needed.