Ottawa and Gatineau commercial
Fire rated doors, shutters and annual drop testing in Ottawa
A fire rated door only counts if it still drops. HUSH inspects, drop tests and repairs fire rated doors and rolling fire shutters across Ottawa and Gatineau, replaces the fusible links, and leaves a written record your fire inspector and your insurer can read. Fire door work is quoted after a site visit.
What is a fire rated door or shutter?
A fire rated door or shutter is a listed assembly built to hold a fire back for a stated time, usually 45, 90 or 180 minutes. It closes itself when heat or the alarm releases it, and it carries a label proving the rating.
In a commercial building it is normally a rolling steel fire shutter sitting over an opening in a fire separation: a slat curtain wound on a barrel, held up against its own weight by a release device, and closing by gravity the moment that device lets go. Fire rated sectional doors and swing fire doors exist too, but in Ottawa warehouses, parking garages and mixed-use ground floors the rolling shutter is what you find over a corridor opening, a service counter or a through-wall opening in a fire wall.
The label is the part most people walk past. The rating lives on a listing label riveted to the curtain, the hood or the guide, and it is valid only while the assembly stays as it was listed. Paint over the label, weld a bracket to a guide, or fit a slat, a bottom bar or a release arm off a different door, and the listing no longer describes what is hanging there. If the label is unreadable, an inspector is entitled to treat the whole opening as unrated.
How often does a fire door need to be drop tested in Ontario?
Once a year, and again after any activation or repair. The Ontario Fire Code requires fire separations to be maintained to NFPA 80, and NFPA 80 sets annual inspection and drop testing for every door and shutter with an automatic closing device.
Annual runs from the last test, not from the calendar year, so a shutter tested in March is due the following March. A building with several assemblies is far easier to keep straight if they all go on one visit and one sheet, because the moment two openings drift onto two dates somebody stops tracking the second one. Two events restart the clock early: any time a shutter actually drops, and any time work is done on the release, the governor, the barrel or the curtain.
A new assembly is also tested at acceptance, before the opening is handed over as complete. If you have taken on a building and cannot find a record for an opening, treat that opening as untested and book it rather than assuming the last manager had it done. An assembly that has hung open and untouched for years is the one most likely to fail its first test.
What is a fusible link, and when does it get replaced?
A fusible link is two metal plates soldered together, set to come apart at a rated temperature, commonly 165 F. When it parts, the shutter is released and closes. NFPA 80 requires the links be replaced once a year, at the drop test.
They are replaced on a schedule because they cannot be judged by looking at them. The solder in a link under constant tension creeps over the years, so an aged link can let go early or hold on well past the temperature it is stamped with, and neither failure shows on the outside. Painting is the other common defect: a link buried under a coat of wall paint during a refit is insulated, and the shutter above it has effectively been switched off.
Replacement is like for like. The temperature rating and the physical length of the link are both part of the listed assembly, and a link even slightly longer changes the geometry of the release arm and the tension it sees. We bring the common ratings to site so the link change and the test happen on the same visit rather than becoming a second trip charge.
What happens during a drop test?
The technician releases the shutter and lets it close under its own weight, with no help from a motor and no hand on the curtain. It has to run the full travel and seat in the guides. Then it is reset and dropped a second time.
Closing is not the only thing being measured. Descent speed is timed, because a worn or dry governor lets the curtain run away or drags it to a crawl, and NFPA 80 puts the average closing speed at 6 to 24 inches per second. A shutter that slams or creeps fails on speed even though it reached the floor. The technician also checks that the curtain is not binding in the guides, that the bottom bar lands flat and square, that the barrel still has its tension, and that nothing is stored in the path of an opening that is supposed to be clear at all times.
Two drops, not one, because the reset is where these assemblies fail. A shutter can close perfectly on the first drop and then refuse to hold in the reset position, which would leave the opening without a working fire separation until somebody came back to it. The second drop is what proves the assembly was put back the way it was found, and it is the difference between a test and a demonstration.
What paperwork does an inspector or insurer ask to see?
A written record of the test: the date, the opening it belongs to, who tested it, the closing speed, what was replaced, and the pass or fail result. NFPA 80 requires that record be kept and produced on request. Keep the earlier years too.
Records are read by opening, not by building, so each assembly needs an identifier a stranger can walk to. "Rolling fire shutter, level 1 shipping corridor, grid C4" survives a change of staff. "The back one" does not. Tag each assembly, use the same tag on the sheet every year, and an inspection turns into a comparison instead of a search.
Insurers ask later than inspectors do, and they ask after a loss. A file that runs back several years reads very differently from a single sheet dated last month. We leave a signed report on site after each visit and keep our own copy, so a manager who inherits the building can get the history back, and the work is covered by our written ninety day promise on the labour.
What is your exposure if a fire door has never been tested?
An untested fire door is an open item at the next inspection and a question after a loss. A fire inspector can order the work done on a deadline, and an insurer reviewing a claim will ask for the records the Fire Code required you to keep.
The physical exposure is the larger one. An assembly that has hung open since the building was finished tends to seize: barrel tension bleeds off, guides pack with dust, grit and successive coats of paint, and the curtain has never once been asked to move under its own weight. A first test after a long gap regularly finds a shutter that would not have closed in a fire at all, and that finding is the actual thing being bought.
Handover is where the file gets lost. A building changes managers, the paper does not follow, the shutter is behind a stocked rack, and the whole thing surfaces as an inspection item with a date attached to it. A dated report in hand turns that into a scheduled maintenance cost instead of an order to comply. HUSH works across the Ottawa and Gatineau territory our trucks cover, and carries commercial general liability insurance and WSIB coverage for site access.
Can a fire shutter be reset after it drops?
Usually yes. A shutter that dropped on a failed link or a false alarm is reset: new fusible link, curtain rolled back up, release and governor reset, then a drop test to prove it works. A shutter that closed in a real fire is a different job.
After an actual fire the assembly gets inspected before anyone touches the reset. Heat distorts slats, warps guides and can cook the release device, and a repaired assembly has to be tested again before it counts as a working fire separation. Parts have to be ones listed for that door, which is why a fire shutter repair sometimes waits on the right component arriving rather than on the right day in the calendar.
Do not let staff crank a dropped shutter back up with the wall switch or a chain hoist. A fire shutter is not a service door, the drop is not a fault to be cleared, and winding it back up without a new link leaves the opening with nothing automatic behind it and no record of why it went. Call it in instead, and the reset gets logged with the reason it dropped, which is the entry an inspector will want next time.
Every fire door tested on one visit
Omar is the owner operator and a factory trained technician, and he attends the site himself: drop test, new fusible links, and a signed record for each opening. HUSH carries commercial general liability insurance and WSIB coverage. Fire door work is quoted after a site visit.
Book the site visit- Every major brand serviced
- Factory-trained
- Insured and WSIB-covered
Same-day service
We carry the common springs, cables, rollers and opener parts on every truck, so most repairs are one visit.
A written price before we start
You get a firm price, quoted before we start and never after, and there is no overtime fee at night or on a weekend.
Guaranteed work
Every repair is backed by our written 90-day Done-Right Promise, parts and labour included.
Factory-trained and owner-operated
factory-trained, owner-operated, and servicing every major garage door and opener brand.
Free estimate, and the service call is free with any repair over $250. Ask about financing on approved credit.
From call to fixed, in 4 steps
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Call or book
Tell us what is happening. We give you a real arrival window.
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We diagnose on-site
A technician inspects and shows you exactly what is wrong.
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You get a firm quote
We price the fix and walk you through your options, before any work.
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We fix it, you test it
Most repairs done the same visit, backed by our 90-day promise.
HUSH guarantees its labour for 90 days
The Done-Right Promise covers our labour for 90 days on every repair. If the work is not right, we come back and fix it free. Premium parts carry their own manufacturer warranty.
We can promise this because most of our repairs are done right on the first visit, so callbacks are rare. On the rare one, fixing it is on us, never you.
Fire door due, or never tested at all?
We drop test, replace the links and leave the record, across Ottawa and Gatineau.
Same-day, 7 days a week. Open daily, 7am to 9pm.