Fire door inspections for blocks of flats
Communal doors, riser cupboards and flat front doors, with a record you can keep.
Get a priceA block has two sets of doors and they are not the same job.
The communal doors are the ones on the stairs, the corridors, the bin store and the riser cupboards. They are in daylight and anyone can get at them. The flat entrance doors are the residents' own front doors, and getting to them takes arranging.
Communal doors
These come first because they protect the escape route.
Stair doors take a beating. Prams, bikes, deliveries. The closers get slackened off because somebody found the door heavy, and the seals get scuffed off by a trolley.
Riser and service cupboard doors get missed most. Nobody walks past them looking. We find them wedged, with the lock gone, or with a hole cut for a cable.
Flat entrance doors
The flat front door is the one between a fire in somebody's kitchen and the shared stair.
Residents change them. One leaseholder puts on a new door from a builders merchant. A tenant screws a letterbox through the middle. Somebody planes the bottom off to clear a new carpet. From the landing they all look alike.
To see the hinge side and the closer we have to step inside. So the length of the day depends on the access list your agent hands us.
What the rules say
Where the top floor is over 11 metres, the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 say communal fire doors must be checked at least every three months. Flat entrance doors must be checked at least every twelve months, and you must use best endeavours to get in. Where you cannot, you keep a record.
Under 11 metres those intervals do not apply, but the Fire Safety Order still expects the doors to work. A fire risk assessor will usually set an interval for you.
Handing it over
If you have a managing agent, we can send the report to them as well as to you.
Each door has a reference, a photo and a line on its condition. If you are chasing a leaseholder about their front door, you have something concrete to point at.
A block of flats in Luton had 34 doors repaired on one of our jobs, so we know how these go. Repairs can be priced from the report. Our BM TRADA / FIRAS-certificated contractors do them.
Questions we get asked
Do we need to check every flat?
If you are the responsible person, you should know the state of every flat entrance door. Over 11 metres the regulations say to try each year.
What if a resident will not let you in?
Tell us and we will note it. A record that you tried is better than silence.
Send the postcode and a rough number. A price comes back the same day.
Get a price