Meeting the Requirements of the DDA - Which Door Control?

With the publication of 'Which Door Control?' DORMA are now able to state which of their door closers conform to the latest guidance on Approved Document M(ADM*) .

Disability Discrimination Act:

Part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act introduced a duty upon service providers to remove the physical barriers that prevent people with disabilities from accessing a service. The Special Education Needs & Disability Act (SENDA) details this requirement for schools and educational institutions. The specific performance of door closers in meeting this requirement is detailed within the Building Regulations: BS8300: 2009 and Approved Document M (ADM) in England and Wales, Section 3 in Scotland and Part R in Northern Ireland. These state that:“…a door closer must produce an opening force of below 30N between 0º and 30º degrees and below 22.5N between 30º and 60º degrees…”.

Not all door closers available in the market can meet the criteria. DORMA door closers carry third party test evidence to demonstrate their ability to comply with the requirements of BS8300 and ADM.

Door closer opening forces and third party certification:

Whilst BS8300 and ADM* state maximum opening force requirements in respect of the door closer, the complete doorset must be compliant with this opening force. A Torque Curve shows the opening and closing forces throughout the opening and closing cycle in Nm from initial opening through and beyond 60º of opening. They allow calculation of tolerances the door closer will allow for resistance from other fitted items, such as door seals and hinges, and site conditions.

All the DORMA closers detailed in this guide have been third party tested using pivots as detailed in BS EN 1154(maximum resistance 0.4Nm). High quality accompanying ironmongery such as hinges, latches and intumescent seals should be selected in order to keep the resistance added to the door set to a minimum. BS EN 1935 details the maximum allowable resistance provided by hinges, however no such standard currently exists for door seals.

Contact manufacturers directly for information on the resistance of their ironmongery. This torque graph shows the results from an independent test for the DORMA TS93 cam action closer, demonstrating how the opening force at 0º to 30º degrees of the door opening angle starts at less than 30N and rapidly falls away to less than 22.5N for the remainder of the opening cycle.

This measurement was taken at power setting EN 3, the minimum requirement for fire doors as detailed in BS EN 1154. For non-fire resisting doors the closer can be set to a lower power setting and therefore the opening forces will be even lower.

*Section 3 in Scotland, Part R in Northern Ireland

For more information, please contact your local DORMA salesperson, call 01462 477600 or email dda@dorma-uk.co.uk.

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New brochure: Which Door Control? (Adobe Acrobat file)

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	A range of DORMA closers meet the required opening forces of the latest ODPM guidance. download view picture