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Behind every tall tower built in Toronto, there are dozens of firms supplying the countless elements necessary to bring a project from plan to reality. Building mediums, exterior finishing materials and interior design finishes are among the most discussed, but behind the glamour and design details, crucial mechanical, electrical, and safety systems are required to ensure buildings function safely.
In high-rise buildings, various fire safety systems are employed to slow or eliminate the spread of flames and heat and improve evacuation times, most notably sprinkler systems and fireproof concrete stairwells. Recent local residential tower fires, as well as high-profile international events like London's 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, have underscored the importance of fire safety systems in high-rise buildings. One element of fire-proofing buildings is the installation of hollow metal temperature rise rated doors designed to restrict the transfer of heat from one side of a door to the other for a certain period of time. A specific sub-category of fire door present in almost every modern building, these installations prevent stairwell areas and the doors themselves from becoming too hot, including burning or melting, and slowing the spread of fires. These doors are predominantly used in stairwells, allowing for safer evacuations of multi-storey buildings.
The Ontario Building Code (OBC) requires temperature rise rated doors in all buildings higher than three storeys. It also indicates the allowable heat transfer for set amounts of time, door size/dimensions, and other specifications that must be factored into the design of important building components like stairwells and fire exits. Guidance from a certified hardware consultant can help ensure regulations these are being met and balance them with other factors, such as security and life safety functionality.
Trillium Architectural Products is a local example of a supplier of temperature rise rated door installations. The company has worked on notable Toronto projects including recent additions to the city like the Sun Life Financial Tower at One York, the EY Tower at Richmond Adelaide Centre, 18 York, Bremner Tower, and the Delta Hotel in the South Core, and Hotel X at Exhibition Place. Other significant projects currently under construction that will include Trillium’s fire rated and temperature rise rated doors include The Well, 100 Queens Quay, the Waterfront Innovation Centre, and Grenadier Square.
Among these, The Well, being the largest active construction site in Toronto, is also the project with the largest number of temperature rise rated doors being installed, with a total of 288 throughout the complex. The sheer quantity of doors being used at large-scale projects like these underscores the need for developers and architects to install the proper doors, preventing against expensive and time-consuming replacements otherwise needed to bring a building back up to OBC standards. If a project on such a scale were to install fire doors that didn't meet code, the need to replace such a quantity of doors would prove to be a costly mistake, easily prevented by certified fire door inspections prior to installation. This due diligence can be complicated when an untrained eye reviews a standard fire rated door label versus a Certified Fire Door Assembly Inspector.
Not all doors are created equal. As an example, a door labeled “Temperature Rise Exceeds 650 degrees Fahrenheit at 30 minutes” may seem like it's stating that it performs for 30 minutes in extreme heat, though the label actually indicates that the door gets too hot too quickly. In this example, the non temperature rise rated door would heat up far beyond the 650-degree limit and be dangerously hot to touch.
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