Fire doors for Malta, with the paperwork that matches

What EI30 and EI60 actually mean

The letters are simpler than they look. E is integrity: the door holds back flame and hot gases. I is insulation: the unexposed face does not get hot enough to set fire to what is on the other side. The number is the minutes for which the assembly does both under test.

EI30 is thirty minutes, EI60 is sixty. Which one you need on which opening is not a showroom decision: it comes from the fire strategy for your building. Our job is to supply what the strategy specifies, with documentation that proves it.

Worth knowing what these marks do not cover. They say nothing about acoustic performance, although a solid core is usually quieter, and nothing about smoke leakage, which is a separate designation and has to be asked for separately.

The certificate covers the set, not the leaf

This is where the expensive mistakes happen. The whole assembly is tested together — leaf, frame, intumescent seals, hinges, lock and door closer, in one specific combination — and the certificate applies to that combination.

Which means you cannot:

• hang a fire rated leaf in an existing ordinary frame;
• swap the hinges or the lock for something equivalent that was cheaper;
• leave out the closer, because a door propped open protects nothing;
• cut the leaf afterwards for a vision panel, a grille or an electronic lock.

Any one of those voids the certificate. At inspection it gets spotted, and the doors are replaced — invariably at the worst possible moment, days before handover.

Where they are asked for in Malta

The enquiries we get from Malta come almost entirely from a handful of situations:

• Apartment blocks — flat entrance doors onto a common corridor, and doors onto the stairwell.
• Hotels and guest accommodation — doors onto escape corridors and stairs, where the documentation is needed for licensing as well as for the building inspection.
• Plant rooms and services — boiler rooms, meter cupboards, generator rooms.
• Garages and basements — the door between parking and the residential core.
• Commercial premises — stores, archives, server rooms.

Because Malta is a small market with a lot of simultaneous construction, lead times are what catch people out. Fire doors are not a stock item: they are built for a specific opening in a tested combination, and production takes six to eight weeks before anything is loaded.

What we need to quote accurately

Three things, and then the quotation is straightforward.

The class specified in the fire strategy — EI30 or EI60. The sizes: structural opening and wall thickness, opening by opening. The hand and swing — on escape routes doors normally open in the direction of travel.

If you have an extract from the fire strategy or the architect's door schedule, send that instead: it answers all three at once and avoids the most common failure, which is ordering EI30 where the strategy called for EI60.

Malta being in the EU, there is no customs clearance and no duty. Shipping is by road to Sicily and ferry, or groupage from a mainland port — roughly one to two weeks from loading.

Frequently asked questions

Doors for a project in Malta?

Send the door schedule or the drawings: we reply with a written quotation, normally within 24 working hours, in English or Italian.