What’s the quickest way to increase the scope of my existing PAS 24 / dual-certified doorset?

There are several reasons why a door manufacturer may want to increase the scope of an existing PAS 24 or dual certified doorset under the current market conditions. Supply chain issues, inflation and the exchange rate all have a bearing on the bottom line, so a manufacturer may want to consider sourcing a certain component from elsewhere. What was once easily shipped from Ukraine or the China region may not be the case anymore, now or in the near future. For UK door manufacturers, what was once good value from North America during times of of stable exchange rates, may not be so now. As we are all aware, hardware and fixing specification is not interchangeable in smoke and security certification, so a new component in a doorset cannot simply be switched in, it has to be re-tested. This obviously requires careful weighing up of the short and long term benefits. However, increasing the scope of a doorset can also mean new avenues of opportunity so is well worth considering. We have accrued a great deal of testing experience at Rutland so we thought we’d share some tips to consider beforehand. 

Return on Investment (ROI) 
When looking at increasing the scope of your apartment doorset, ROI is one of the most important considerations – this might sound obvious but it can be easy to under-estimate exactly what is involved. We would recommend buying the actual testing standards from BSI and reading them first, to get a fuller understanding of what is involved. Testing can be onerous and requires significant investment of time and money. A full phase of PAS24/dual certification door testing could cost in the region of £20-30k depending on the number of door designs, and that’s not even taking time, effort, transport and so on into account – definitely not to be entered into lightly.

Choose a test lab that can guarantee a quick turnaround 
Test labs vary enormously.  ROI is important, so try to choose one that can guarantee a quick turnaround in getting the report back to you, because you won’t be able to do anything until you have that report back. 

Tell the ‘competent assessor’ what you are aiming to achieve
Even before scheduling the test dates, it is worthwhile providing the ‘competent assessor’ with all the specs up front. This way, they can confirm that what you are testing will actually achieve the extra scope desired – this saves time and money by preventing fruitless testing. 
This information will also form the body of the fire, smoke, security and performance test reports, so can be used to create draft reports prior to the actual testing. Once the testing is done, it is then relatively simple to incorporate the results to produce a finished report.  This can mean the difference between a report taking a few days and 6 months or more. 

Perform the tests in a logical order
We recommend performing tests in a certain order, to limit costs should you need to re-test anything. For example, a smoke test may cost £2-3k, far less than a fire test, which could be over £10k. It therefore makes sense to pass the lower cost smoke and security tests before attempting the fire test – this is the order we recommend:

Increasing the scope of PAS 24/dual certified apartment doorsets is, quite rightly, an arduous process. It takes time, money and real commitment to get a doorset through a full phase of testing. Maintaining those standards and having regular ongoing audits also bears a cost. This is why we have already written about manufacturers being able to stand firm in the face of budget pressures and ‘value engineering’, and to be able to charge a fair price for a doorset that is, potentially, a life-saving device. Our overall advice for increasing the scope of a doorset is to do your homework before embarking. We are always happy to share the benefit of our experience or make suggestions, so do get in touch if you have a question.