Once the fire strategy for the building has fixed the duration, the next question on a rated panel is what the door itself is made of. Two routes are in common use. A metal faced door arrives finished, in its frame, and stays visible as a panel. A plasterboard faced door carries a board insert, taken to a skim and painted along with everything around it, so what you end up looking at is a wall with a seam in it rather than a hatch.
Everything on this page takes the metal faced route. That suits work where the panel will be opened on a schedule, where the opening needs to be kept shut to the wrong people, or where nobody wants to send a finishing trade back to make good a hatch. Where the priority is a surface that vanishes, the fire rated plasterboard door panels are the better fit, and the wider fire rated access panels hub covers both routes together.
Neither route is a compromise on rating. Both are supplied rated. What separates them is handling, appearance and the order the trades work in. If you want the same door face without a rating, the standard metal door access panels cover that ground.
The argument for a metal face is practical rather than technical. It is about how the panel behaves for the next twenty years, not about how it looks on the day it goes in.
Risers, meter cupboards and plant voids get opened to a timetable. A metal face takes that traffic without the surface breaking up, and it closes back onto its own frame every time, so the tenth visit looks like the first.
In circulation space, tenanted areas and anywhere the public passes, a solid door and a defined edge to secure are worth more than a flush finish. Locking and catch arrangements vary from line to line, so read the individual product rather than assuming it across the range.
A factory finished face can be wiped down and shrugs off trolleys, ladders and cleaning equipment. In kitchens, plantrooms, schools and healthcare corridors that is usually the deciding point, and the panel keeps its appearance without being redecorated whenever the corridor is.
A metal door panel is fitted and done. No waiting on a skim coat, no second visit to sand and paint, and no rated opening held up behind a wet trade. On a tight programme that predictability often outweighs the flush result.
With the door face settled, two further choices shape what you order.
The frame is the part that meets the wall. A picture frame has a visible flange that sits proud of the surface and covers the cut edge of the opening, which makes it forgiving where the aperture is rough and quick to work into a wall that is already decorated. A beaded frame carries a perforated bead that takes plaster or filler, so the frame finishes into the surface and only the door is left showing. Retrofit into a finished wall tends to take the picture frame option, while work still ahead of the plasterer suits the beaded frame option.
The fixing method is the second choice. Standard panels are fixed through the frame in the conventional way. FlipFix access panels use a clamp that grips the back of the board instead, which shortens the time on each opening where there are a lot of them to hang. Both methods run through the rated metal door lines in both frame types, so one preference does not have to be traded against the other.
Both one hour and two hour options sit in this range. Sixty minutes covers the bulk of compartment walls and ceilings in housing and general commercial work. One hundred and twenty minutes appears where the construction itself is asked to hold for longer. Which one your job needs is set by the fire strategy and by the person responsible for it, not by what happens to be fitted elsewhere on the floor. Browse the 1hr fire rated access panels or the 2hr fire rated access panels once that is settled.
Two points are worth holding onto. A rating describes a tested arrangement, which means the panel, its frame, its seals and the construction it was fitted into, so the supplied instructions carry the performance rather than merely tidying it. And the way a panel was tested includes which way up it was, so a panel destined for a ceiling or a shaft should be confirmed as suitable for that position before it is ordered. Where a specification needs certainty, ask us for the documentation on the exact product.
Beyond the mainstream lines there is a round metal door option, and a picture frame panel whose listing also covers airtight, smoke tested and acoustic performance, for openings that have more than fire to answer for. For repeat installs the one hour line also appears in fire rated multipacks.
