In a data centre, a fire door must first and foremost form part of the building’s fire strategy.
At the same time, it must support day-to-day operations, where large and heavy technical equipment needs to be moved in and out of the facility.
This is where FlexParking sees a recurring challenge. The company represents Teckentrup and works with fire doors in special dimensions for technically demanding buildings.
When standard dimensions are not enough
According to Niels Bech, CEO of FlexParking A/S, height is one practical example.
Server racks with installed equipment may require more clearance than conventional door solutions provide.
“A standard fire door can typically be supplied up to around 2.5 metres. We can provide solutions up to approximately 3.5 metres, allowing a rack with equipment to be moved through without having to dismantle it first,” says Niels Bech.
If access requirements are not considered from the outset, the result may be later modifications to parts of the building where structural and fire-safety requirements have already been fixed.
Special dimensions do not remove the requirement for documented fire performance. The door must still be selected and documented in accordance with the project’s fire strategy.
The issue is relevant to projects such as Thylander’s DDC1 in Esbjerg, where substantial amounts of technical equipment must be integrated into a facility with extensive requirements for installations, access and fire compartmentation.
The project illustrates why equipment logistics and fire separation should be considered together from an early stage.
Raised floors also require attention
In many data centres, cables and other infrastructure are routed beneath raised floors.
According to FlexParking, this means that fire separation cannot be assessed solely at the visible door opening.
“When you have a raised floor with cables running beneath the racks, the fire separation also needs to work there. It is a detail that has to be included in the solution from the beginning,” says Niels Bech.
It is an example of why the door solution should not be selected as an isolated standard product.
Dimensions, floor construction, technical installations and fire compartmentation need to work together.
For FlexParking, the key lesson is therefore to define the fire-door solution while the project’s logistics and technical design can still be influenced.
This can reduce the need for later modifications and help ensure that access requirements and fire safety are considered as part of the same design process.
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