Fire Door Inspection in London

What a fire door inspection covers.

A fire door is a system, not a slab of timber. The leaf, the frame, the seals, the closer, the hinges, the glazing and the signage were tested together, and the door only performs if they are still together and still in the condition they were tested in. An inspection checks each part in turn.

• Gaps: 2 to 4 mm between the leaf and the frame at the head and both sides, measured with a gauge, and a threshold gap within the limit for that door, which is smaller where the door has to hold back cold smoke.
• Intumescent strips and cold smoke seals: present, continuous, undamaged, not painted over and of the type the door was certified with.
• Closer: the door closes fully and latches from any position, including from a few degrees open, without slamming and without needing a push.
• Hinges: the right number, fire rated, all screws present and tight, no wear or leaking oil.
• Glazing: fire-rated glass with the correct beads and seals, no cracks, no replacement with ordinary glass.
• Leaf and frame: no damage, no splits, no unauthorised holes, no gap between the frame and the wall, and the leaf sits square.
• Hold-open devices: only those that release on the alarm; wedges and hooks recorded and removed.
• Signage: the correct "Fire door keep shut" or "keep locked" sign on each face where it applies.
• Certification: the label or plug on the top edge of the leaf, where present, recorded so the door’s rating is known.

The legal basis.

In every non-domestic building in England the responsible person must keep fire safety measures, which includes fire doors, in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair. That duty is article 17 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, and it applies to offices, shops, warehouses, leisure buildings and the common parts of residential blocks alike.

Since January 2023 the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 have added specific duties in multi-occupied residential buildings with a storey over 11 metres: the responsible person must check the fire doors in common parts every three months and use best endeavours to check every flat entrance door once a year. Those regulations also require residents to be told what fire doors do and why they must not be propped open.

The fire risk assessment for a building will usually name fire doors as a control measure. If the doors are not being inspected, the assessment is relying on something nobody is checking.

How often fire doors should be inspected.

For residential common parts in buildings over 11 metres the interval is set by the 2022 regulations: quarterly for communal doors and annually for flat entrance doors.

For commercial premises the law sets the duty but not the frequency. BS 8214 and BS 9999 both recommend an inspection at least every six months, and doors on busy routes, in schools, in leisure buildings or where trolleys and deliveries pass through need looking at more often. A fire door that is used two hundred times a day does not stay in the condition it was certified in for six months without help.

Our default in a compliance contract is six-monthly for every fire door, with high-traffic doors added to the monthly walk round. The interval for each door is recorded on the statutory compliance calendar so it is due on a date, not when somebody remembers.

What we record, and what happens to the failures.

Every door gets a reference and a location. Each inspection records the result for each item on the checklist, a photograph of anything that fails, and a grade: fit for purpose, minor remedial, or fails and needs immediate attention. The record is filed against the building, so it is still there when the contractor or the property manager changes.

Remedial work is where fire door compliance usually stalls, because the inspection report goes to one company and the repairs to another. We close that loop. Failures are priced from the inspection and go onto the works schedule with a priority. Most are repairs, not replacements: a closer adjusted or swapped, a strip replaced, hinges re-fixed, a gap corrected with a lipping or a new stop, signage fitted. A door that cannot be brought back to its certified condition is replaced with a certified door set and recorded as such.

Anything that leaves a door unable to close is dealt with on the visit where the part is on the van, and reported the same day where it is not.

Fire doors in London commercial buildings.

We inspect fire doors in offices and multi-let buildings, retail units and estates, leisure and sports buildings, industrial and warehouse premises, and the common parts of residential blocks for managing agents and landlords. The checklist is the same everywhere; what changes is the traffic through the door and the consequences of it failing.

In a multi-let building the doors on the landlord’s common parts and the doors inside each tenant’s demise are usually different people’s responsibility. We record which is which and report them separately, so neither party assumes the other has done it.

On the question of qualifications we are straightforward. Inspections are carried out by competent, trained inspectors, and remedial works by tradespeople who work on fire doors regularly. Where a building or a client requires a third-party certificated inspector, for example under a specific insurer or funder condition, we manage one and file their report in the same library.

Common questions

Questions we get asked about fire door inspection.

Guidance reviewed September 2026