Access control and the fire alarm: what has to happen on activation

The principle

Access control holds doors closed. Escape needs doors open. Where those two meet, the fire strategy wins. gov.uk's guidance on fire safety and evacuation plans requires your plan to show a clear passageway to all escape routes, clearly marked routes that are as short and direct as possible, enough exits and routes for everyone to escape, and emergency doors that open easily (gov.uk). An access control design has to be consistent with that, and with the findings of your fire risk assessment.

We deliberately do not tell you which doors should release, on what signal, or with what fail-safe arrangement. That is a decision for your fire risk assessor and the fire alarm engineer for your specific building, and no website can make it for you. What we can tell you is that it must be decided, priced and documented.

What the interface actually is

In most buildings there is a physical link between the fire alarm panel and the access control system, so that on activation the doors covered by the strategy release. It is real engineering work: a monitored connection, defined behaviour for each door, commissioning with the alarm engineer present, and a record of the test. It is not a wire someone adds on the last afternoon of the install.

Terms your installer will use

Fail-safe and fail-secure

Whether a lock releases or stays locked when power is removed. Different doors in the same building can legitimately need different answers, which is exactly why it needs designing rather than defaulting.

Green break-glass unit

The manual emergency release next to a controlled escape door. Its presence, position and whether it is monitored are part of the design, not an afterthought.

Request to exit

The device that lets people leave normally without a credential. Its failure mode matters as much as the lock's.

BS 7273-4

The British Standard covering the actuation of release mechanisms for doors. We name it rather than link it because it is a published standard you buy from BSI, not a free web page. Ask your fire risk assessor whether it applies to your building and which critical category your doors fall into.

How to price it properly

• Say in your enquiry that the system must interface with the fire alarm. Quotes that assume no interface will always look cheaper.
• Ask who is responsible for the interface: the access control installer, the fire alarm company, or both, and who commissions it.
• Ask for the test to be witnessed and recorded, and for the result to go in your fire safety records.
• Send the design to your fire risk assessor before installation, and keep their response.
• Check the interface at every fire alarm test after that. A door that stopped releasing three months ago is a defect nobody notices until it matters.

Intruder alarm interaction

The other common integration is the intruder alarm, so that a valid credential at the final door unsets the system and the last person out sets it. It is much less safety-critical than the fire interface but it is a real source of nuisance calls when it is done badly. Ask whether the integration is native between the two manufacturers or needs an interface module and a licence.