Fire Door
Inspection
Ensure your passive fire protection is legally compliant. Comprehensive checks of FD30/FD60 doors, intumescent seals, and self-closing devices.
- Certified Inspectors
- Detailed Asset Register
- Gap Analysis Included
- Pass/Fail Certification
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Fire Door Inspection Pricing
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Your Fire Door Inspection Guide
Everything a London landlord, managing agent or responsible person needs to know about fire door inspection, in the order people usually ask it. Jump straight to the part you need.
- What the inspection covers
- The law and your legal duties
- Deadlines you have to hit
- If you cannot show a record
- FD30, FD60 and FD30S ratings
- Gaps, tolerances and seals
- HMOs and communal areas
- Preparing for the visit
- How to read your report
- Remedial work and re-checks
- Who needs a check?
- Competent persons and records
Why Check Fire Doors? Inside a Fire Door Inspection
Fire doors are a critical “passive” safety measure. They prevent the spread of fire and smoke, giving residents time to escape.
The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 make it a legal requirement for responsible persons of multi-occupied residential buildings over 11 metres to:
- Undertake quarterly checks of all fire doors (including self-closers) in the common parts.
- Undertake annual checks of all flat entrance doors.
A fire door only works as a complete assembly. The leaf, the frame, the intumescent strips, the cold smoke seals, the hinges, the latch and the closer are tested together as a set, and a single missing component can reduce a rated door to an ordinary one. That is why an inspection looks at the whole door set rather than glancing at a label and moving on.
Most of the defects we record are not dramatic. They are a closer that has been adjusted until it no longer shuts the door, a strip that was painted over during redecoration, a hole drilled through a leaf for a cable, or a door held open with a wedge because the corridor gets warm. Each of them is cheap to put right and each of them is the difference between thirty minutes of protection and none.
Gap Analysis
Gaps between the door and frame must be between 2mm and 4mm. Gaps at the bottom (threshold) typically must not exceed 8-10mm.
Intumescent Seals
Checking for the presence and condition of intumescent strips and cold smoke seals. These expand under heat to seal the door.
Self-Closers
Testing that the door closes fully into its rebate from any angle, overcoming the latch resistance, without slamming.
Ironmongery
Inspecting hinges (must be 3, CE marked), handles, and locks to ensure they are fire-rated and secure.
What We Deliver
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01
Door Schedule
A unique ID for every door inspected, mapping its location in the building.
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02
Defect Photos
Clear photographic evidence of any failures (e.g. missing seals, excessive gaps).
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03
Action Plan
Prioritized list of remedial works required to make the building compliant.
Keep the record
The regulations expect the responsible person to hold a written record of every check. The door schedule, results and photographs we issue are the evidence you produce to a fire officer, an insurer or a licensing team.
Fire Door Inspection Law and Your Legal Duties
The 2022 Regulations behind your fire door inspection
Two pieces of law sit behind every check. The first is the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which makes a named “responsible person” accountable for fire safety in the common parts of any building containing two or more sets of domestic premises, and in virtually all commercial premises. Fire doors are part of the general fire precautions that Order requires to be maintained in efficient working order and in good repair.
The second is the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, which came into force on 23 January 2023 and turned that general maintenance duty into specific, dated tasks for residential blocks. It is the regulation that introduced the quarterly and annual check routine, and the duty to give residents information about the fire doors in their building and about not tampering with them.
Neither instrument invents a new test method. Doors are assessed against the standard they were certificated to — typically BS 476-22 or BS EN 1634-1 for the fire test, with installation and maintenance guidance in BS 8214 for timber fire door assemblies. Guidance for responsible persons is published by government and by the fire sector; the National Fire Chiefs Council is a useful reference point for current expectations.
Fire door inspection deadlines you have to hit
Most responsible persons who get into difficulty do so on the timetable rather than on the doors themselves. The routine set out in the 2022 Regulations is short enough to memorise:
- Every three months, communal doors. In residential buildings above 11 metres, all fire doors in the common parts — stairwell doors, lobby doors, riser and cupboard doors, bin store doors — are checked quarterly, self-closers included.
- Every twelve months, flat entrance doors. The responsible person must use best endeavours to check each flat entrance door annually. Access refusals are recorded rather than ignored, and a second attempt is made.
- Information to residents. In all multi-occupied residential buildings with two or more domestic premises and common parts, residents must be given information about fire doors, whatever the building height.
- At every change of tenancy. Not a statutory deadline, but the practical moment to check a flat entrance door: it is empty, accessible, and any damage from the outgoing tenancy is still visible.
- After any works. Rewiring, plumbing, redecoration and door entry upgrades are the three most common causes of a door failing its next check. Re-check anything a contractor has drilled, planed or painted.
Buildings at or below 11 metres are not caught by the quarterly and annual timetable, but the 2005 Order still requires the doors to be maintained, and a fire risk assessment will normally set its own inspection interval. Six to twelve months is the usual working answer for a smaller block or a house in multiple occupation.
What happens if you cannot show a fire door inspection record
Enforcement sits with the local fire and rescue authority. An inspecting officer who is not satisfied can serve an alterations notice, an enforcement notice requiring specified work by a stated date, or — where people are at serious risk — a prohibition notice that restricts or stops use of part of the building. Failure to comply with the 2005 Order can be prosecuted, and penalties can include fines and, for serious breaches, imprisonment. Because enforcement practice and sentencing change over time, check current government and fire authority guidance rather than relying on a figure you read once.
The commercial consequences usually arrive first. Insurers ask for evidence of maintained fire precautions after a claim. Lenders and buyers’ solicitors ask for the last set of records during conveyancing on a block. Local authority HMO licensing officers ask for them at renewal. A missing document is rarely the whole problem, but it is very often the thing that stalls everything else.
The practical protection is a written record with dates, door identifiers, results and photographs, kept where you can produce it in minutes. That record is the deliverable of the inspection, not a by-product of it.
The Fire Door Inspection Process
Detailed, non-destructive testing of your fire door sets.
Identification
Locating and tagging all fire doors in the premises.
Mechanical Check
Testing hinges, closers, and latching mechanisms.
Seal Check
Verifying intumescent strips and smoke seals.
Report
Issuing the certificate and defect report.
Fire Door Standards, Ratings and Tolerances
FD30, FD60 and FD30S: what the ratings mean
The number in a fire door rating is the number of minutes the door assembly resisted fire under test conditions. FD30 gives 30 minutes of integrity and is the standard specification for a flat entrance door and for most doors onto a protected escape route in a house or small block. FD60 gives 60 minutes and is specified where the risk or the travel distance is greater — taller buildings, plant rooms, some commercial separations and doors protecting a single stair.
The suffix matters as much as the number. An S — as in FD30S — means the door set also restricts the passage of cold smoke, which requires a brush or fin smoke seal in addition to the intumescent strip. Smoke, not flame, is what actually incapacitates people in the first minutes of a fire in a residential corridor, so almost every flat entrance door specified today is FD30S rather than plain FD30.
Evidence of the rating comes from the certification label or plug, usually on the hinge edge or the top edge of the leaf, backed by the manufacturer’s field of application. A door with no identifiable label is not automatically a failure, but it cannot be certified as compliant on inspection alone; the options are to trace the original documentation or to replace the door set with a certificated one.
Gaps, tolerances and seals: the millimetres that decide it
A rated door only performs if it sits correctly in its frame. Gaps between the door and the frame must be between 2mm and 4mm, and gaps at the bottom (threshold) typically must not exceed 8-10mm. Anything wider gives smoke a path before the intumescent material has time to react; anything tighter tends to mean the door binds and someone eventually planes it.
Intumescent strips are the reason a 3mm gap is acceptable at all. Under heat they expand many times their original volume and fill the perimeter gap, sealing the leaf to the frame. They fail when they are painted over, when a section has been cut out around a hinge, when they have been prised loose, or when the wrong width has been substituted during a repair. Cold smoke seals — the brush or fin element — work at room temperature and must be continuous and in contact with the leaf.
Alongside the gaps we check that the leaf has not been trimmed beyond the manufacturer’s permitted tolerance, that any glazing is fire-rated and correctly beaded, that apertures for letter plates and vision panels are certificated for that door type, and that no service penetration has been cut through the leaf. Cable holes drilled through a door for a broadband or door entry upgrade are one of the most common reasons a previously compliant door fails.
What a Fire Door Inspection Checks
1. Certification and Labelling
Every door set is traced back to its evidence of performance. We look for the certification label or plug on the hinge or top edge, record the rating it declares, and check that the leaf, frame and ironmongery actually match the field of application that certification covers. A door with no traceable evidence is recorded as such rather than guessed at.
2. Leaf and Frame Condition
The leaf is checked for impact damage, delamination, warping, unauthorised apertures and any trimming beyond the permitted tolerance. The frame is checked for secure fixing, for a continuous stop of adequate depth, and for the intumescent mastic or packing behind it. A door hung in a frame that moves cannot hold a 3mm gap.
3. Gaps and Alignment
Gaps are measured on all four edges with a gauge, not by eye. The head and both stiles should sit between 2mm and 4mm, and the threshold gap typically must not exceed 8-10mm. We also check the leaf sits flush in the rebate along its full height, because a door that only touches at the latch leaves an open path for smoke at the top corner.
4. Intumescent Strips and Cold Smoke Seals
Strips must be present on all required edges, continuous, correctly sized, firmly seated in their groove and free of paint. Cold smoke seals — the brush or fin element that gives an FD30S door its S — must be intact and in contact with the leaf across the full closing face. Painted, cut, missing or loose seals are among the most common failures we record.
5. Hinges, Locks and Ironmongery
A rated door normally needs three CE or UKCA marked hinges, correctly aligned, with every screw present and tight and no packing behind the blades. Latches, locks, letter plates, vision panels and door closers must all be fire-rated and certificated for the door type. Standard high-street ironmongery fitted during a repair invalidates the assembly.
6. Self-Closing Devices
The closer is tested from several opening angles, including a shallow one. The door must close fully into its rebate and engage the latch every time, overcoming the seals without slamming. Devices that have been adjusted to make a corridor door easier to push, disconnected, or defeated with a wedge are recorded as failures because a fire door held open protects nobody.
The Most Common Fire Door Failures
Nine out of ten defects we record fall into one of these three groups, and all three are usually inexpensive to correct.
Excessive Gaps
Perimeter gaps wider than 4mm, a threshold gap beyond tolerance, or a leaf that has been planed to stop it binding. Smoke passes long before the intumescent strip can react.
Seal Damage
Intumescent strips painted over during redecoration, cut around new ironmongery, or prised out. Cold smoke seals missing, flattened or no longer touching the leaf.
Doors That Do Not Close
A closer wound down until the door stops short of the rebate, a latch that does not engage, a disconnected arm, or a door permanently wedged open for convenience.
HMOs, Flats and Communal Areas
Shared buildings carry the heaviest duty because the doors are doing the most work. In a house in multiple occupation, the doors to each let room and to the kitchen are protecting the single escape route that everyone in the building depends on.
In an HMO the doors are usually specified through the local authority’s licensing standards and the fire risk assessment together. Room doors are typically FD30S with a self-closing device, the kitchen is separated from the escape route, and cupboards housing meters or risers are treated as fire compartments in their own right. Licensing officers routinely ask to see the door records at inspection and at licence renewal.
In a purpose-built block the split is different. The communal doors belong to the freeholder or managing agent, while the flat entrance door sits in the leaseholder’s demise but is unambiguously part of the building’s compartmentation — which is why the 2022 Regulations put the annual check duty on the responsible person and give them a best-endeavours obligation to gain access.
HMO Room Doors
Typically FD30S with a self-closer, protecting the single shared escape route every occupant depends on.
Communal Doors
Stair, lobby, riser, bin store and plant room doors in the common parts, checked quarterly above 11 metres.
Flat Entrance Doors
Inside the demise but part of the building compartmentation, checked annually on a best-endeavours basis.
Licensing Evidence
Door records are routinely requested by HMO licensing officers at inspection and at licence renewal.
Where the duty sits
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01
Responsible person
Freeholder, managing agent, RMC or RTM company for the common parts.
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02
HMO landlord
All room, kitchen and cupboard doors plus the escape route throughout.
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03
Access refusals
Recorded, not ignored — a further attempt is made and documented.
Do not wedge doors open
A door held open by a wedge, a fire extinguisher or a hook is not a fire door. Where a corridor genuinely needs to stay open, use a certificated hold-open device linked to the fire alarm.
Preparing For and Acting On Your Report
Preparing for your fire door inspection
Preparation shortens the visit and stops a door being recorded as a defect simply because the inspector could not reach it. None of it takes long:
- List the doors. If you already hold a door schedule or an asset register, send it ahead. If you do not, we build one — but a plan of the block saves an hour on site.
- Arrange keys and access. Riser cupboards, bin stores, plant rooms and roof lobbies are the doors most often missed, and they are usually the ones behind a locked door with no obvious keyholder.
- Give residents notice. For flat entrance doors, written notice of at least 24 hours is the usual standard. A short explanation that the check is a legal safety requirement resolves nearly every refusal.
- Leave the doors as they are. Do not remove wedges, re-hang anything or touch up paintwork the week before. We need to see the building as it normally operates.
- Have the paperwork to hand. Previous reports, the fire risk assessment, and any manufacturer’s certification for doors installed in the last few years all help us close out a door as compliant rather than “evidence not available”.
A small block of six to ten doors normally takes an hour or two. A larger block with several hundred doors is planned in phases so the report arrives as a single document rather than in fragments.
How to read your fire door inspection report
The report is written to be acted on, not filed. Each door gets its own entry, and every entry carries the same fields:
- Door reference and location. A unique ID and where it sits in the building, so a contractor can find it without you walking them round.
- Rating and evidence. FD30, FD60, with or without smoke seals, and what the rating is evidenced by — label, plug, plate or documentation.
- Component results. Leaf and frame condition, gaps, intumescent strips, smoke seals, hinges, latch, closer, glazing, signage and any apertures, each recorded pass or fail.
- Photographs of failures. Clear photographic evidence of any failures, such as missing seals or excessive gaps, so a defect cannot be disputed later.
- Priority. Whether the defect needs immediate attention, planned works, or is an observation for the next cycle.
Read the priority column first, then the photographs. Between them they tell you what has to happen this week and what can be bundled into the next maintenance round.
Remedial work and re-inspection
We focus on independent inspection and certification, which is deliberate: an inspector who also sells the repairs has an obvious incentive to find them. For minor adjustments — tightening a hinge, adjusting a closer so the door latches from any angle — our engineers may assist on site. For major repairs we can recommend approved joiners who work to the manufacturer’s field of application rather than improvising.
Where a defect is structural or where the door set cannot be evidenced at all, replacement with a certificated door set is usually cheaper over the life of the building than repeated repairs to a door nobody can document. Whatever route you take, keep the invoice, the certification and the photographs together with the report.
Once remedial work is complete, a follow-up fire door inspection closes the loop and updates the record. If you already know some doors will fail, say so when you book your inspection and we will build the re-visit into the plan.
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Who Needs a Fire Door Inspection?
Landlords, agents and responsible persons
If you own, manage or control a building where people other than a single household live or work, the duty almost certainly applies to you. That covers freeholders and their managing agents, resident management companies and right-to-manage companies, housing associations and local authority landlords, HMO landlords and student accommodation operators, and landlords of individual flats whose entrance door opens onto a communal escape route.
It also covers commercial occupiers. Offices, shops, restaurants, care settings, schools and warehouses all rely on fire doors to protect escape routes and to compartmentalise risk, and the 2005 Order applies to them directly. A single-family home in owner occupation is outside the regime, though anyone with a loft conversion or a three-storey house will find fire doors specified in their building control approval.
Competent persons and inspection records
The law does not name a single qualification. It requires that checks are carried out by someone competent — a person with the training, knowledge, experience and equipment to identify defects in a fire door assembly and to understand what the certification evidence means. In practice, responsible persons who are challenged are asked two questions: who did the check, and what were they qualified to do.
That is why our reports name the inspector, record their qualification, and date every entry. Quarterly communal checks in a well-managed block can reasonably be carried out by trained site staff working to a written procedure, with an independent competent-person survey at a longer interval to validate the routine. Annual flat entrance door checks and any door where certification is in doubt are better handled independently from the start.
Keep the records for the life of the building, not just the current cycle. The value of a door schedule is that it shows a trend — the same closer failing three cycles running tells you far more than any single report.
How door checks fit your other compliance
Doors are one component of a fire strategy, and they are assessed against it. Your fire risk assessment under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 is the document that decides which doors are needed, what rating they should be, and how often they should be checked — so it is the natural starting point if you do not already have one. Detection and warning are covered by fire alarm installation and testing to BS 5839, and the wider package of extinguishers, emergency lighting and signage sits under our fire safety certificate service.
Electrical safety runs on its own clock: an EICR certificate is required at least every five years for private rented homes in England under the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020. It is worth mentioning here because rewiring is one of the most common causes of a door failing its next check — cables get run through leaves and frames that should never have been drilled.
Because the door checks repeat most often, they are the natural anchor for the rest of the calendar. Landlords and agents who bundle door, alarm and electrical work into a single visit lose less time to access appointments and keep one renewal date in the diary. You can book any combination online and we will send one team where the qualifications allow it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Clear answers on ratings, check frequencies, common failures and what happens when a door does not pass.
For buildings over 11m in height, communal fire doors must be checked quarterly (every 3 months) and flat entrance doors annually. For other HMOs, a regular interval (e.g. every 6-12 months) is recommended as best practice.
Common failures include: gaps larger than 4mm, damaged seals, door not closing fully into the rebate, loose hinges, or non-fire-rated glass. Wedging doors open can also damage the self-closer.
We focus on independent inspection and certification. However, for minor adjustments (like tightening a hinge or adjusting a closer), our engineers may assist on-site. For major repairs, we can recommend approved joiners.
FD30 means the door assembly is designed to resist fire for 30 minutes. FD60 provides 60 minutes of protection. Most residential flat doors are FD30S (S denotes smoke protection).
If you are a landlord, yes. Providing proof that a flat entrance door is compliant is crucial for your liability and tenant safety, especially in HMOs.
Someone with the training, knowledge, experience and equipment to identify defects in a door assembly and to interpret its certification evidence. The law does not name one qualification, so keep a record of who carried out each check and what they were qualified to do.
The duty is one of best endeavours, not force. Record the refusal, make a further attempt at a different time, and keep written evidence of both. A short explanation that the check is a legal safety requirement resolves most refusals.
No. All checks are non-destructive and visual, supported by gap gauges and functional testing of closers and latches. Nothing is drilled, cut or dismantled, and the doors remain in use throughout.
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