Our company is located in San Diego County, California. We service the entire county of San Diego. Our inspection services are fast, reliable and competitively priced. Call for a free estimate. We offer same day inspection service.
California Fire Door Inspections is a full service inspection company. We can assist any size company or individual's need with fire door consulting, certification, inspection and signage needs. Annual Inspections include evaluation of modified door, code interpretation and compliance. Our inspection includes compliance of new or field modified doors including the existing components, assemblies and signage of all components.
Elevator and Sprinklers have been required to have annual inspections for decades.
After review, NFPA (National Fire Prevention Association) has come out with additional requirements since the catastrophic encounters with 9/11. The changes incorporated in NFPA 80 (2007) and NFPA (101 2009) are must-do requirements for new construction as well as existing construction.
These are drastic changes that NOW REQUIRE ANNUAL INSPECTIONS OF FIRE RATED DOORS AND HARDWARE AND EGRESS (the ability to leave the building) REQUIREMENTS.
How does this reflect with your insurance?
All property is exposed to a variety of conditions that can impact the property in a negative way. If these negative conditions did not exist, there would be no exposure to loss and therefore, no risk to insure against. Since we know that is not the case, insurance underwriters use a classification system known as 'perils'. These perils include, but are not limited to, fire, weather effects and vandalism or malicious mischief.
In regards to the fire peril, fire can be classified as friendly or hostile. A friendly fire, as the name implies, stays in the confines for which it was intended, such as a fireplace. A hostile fire is one that unintentionally escapes its original confines. Thus, a fire-safe environment is one in which hostile fires are prevented or, at the very least, controlled.
Within a fire-safe environment, from the insurer's perspective, there are six basic components which make up an adequate fire loss control program: (1) a written loss control program, (2) adequate building design, (3) appropriate hazards protection, (4) proper surveillance levels, (5) acceptable water supplies, including sprinkler systems, and (6) public and/or private fire department services. It is when all six of these criteria are met and maintained that the property is considered fire-safe and may qualify for insurance in the highly protected risk (HPR) market.
Business that are designated as a HPR property are judged to have a much lower than normal probability of loss by virtue of its low hazard occupancy and/or property type, its superior construction, its special fire protection equipment and procedures, and its management's commitment to loss prevention. Adherence to the fire-door inspection proceess, as an example.
HPR insurers generally offer very favorable rates on property insurance. The difference between a HPR insurer's rate and a published rate on the same property may be quite substantial. As an example, if HPR 'all risks' rates ranged from .02 to .15 per $100 of property value insured, published credited rates for the same properties may range from .20 to .50 per $100 of property value. HPR rates usually have a minimum premium level that needs to be met.
Thus, qualifying as a HPR property generally has these characteristics:
**An adequate fire protection system, typically in the form of an automatic sprinkler system, which is monitored by a guard or by a central station supervisory service.
**Building construction type commensurate with the combustible loading of the contents and operations.
**Fire doors and walls to contain a fire within a limited area of a large building.
**Special protection for special fire hazards, such as in-rack sprinklers for solid shelving storage of inventory.
**Adequate water supply and pressure
**Adequate local fire protection
**Management commitment to property loss prevention
Two points from this bulleted list jump out; fire doors/fire walls to contain a fire and management's commitment to property loss prevention, i.e. adherence to the fire door inspection process. Businesses whose property meets the general criteria would be in a position to obtain a quote from an HPR.
One of our tasks as a Foundation is to continue to investigate what the potential benefits of a fire-door inspection are from the building owner (other than the obvious one of adhering to the code). Remember, if a jurisdiction has not incorportated NFPA 80 (2007) into their codes in some fashion, they are under no obligation to enforce the fire-door inspection. For example: California usies the CBC(California Building Code), the CBC executed in January 2008, tied NFPA 80 as a reference Standard. Now that NFPA is adopted into the CBC it requires enforcement of an Annual Fire Door Inspection.
The fire-door inspection process not only makes sense from a life-safety perspective, but it could alsom make sense from a building owner's business perspective. It is evident that there is a place in all of this 'insurance language' to recognize the benefits of the fire-door inspection.
At the very least, maybe a building owner's reate would not increase if fire-doors are inspected on an annual basis. The best case scenario could see a reduction in rates.
Insurers understand the benefits of the fire-door inspection and evaluate the potential reisk and reward for every building owner adhering to such a Standard.
There are several agencies that do the newly regulated door inspections...
Contact: California Fire Door Inspections (CAFDI.com) for a complete review of your property by a licensed, certified Inspection Team. Keep records of the annual inspections in the Building Management office for review by your insurance field Inspection Team and the local Fire Department.