Fire doors are integral to a building’s passive fire protection but are subject to wear and tear over time.
If there was a fire at your building and your fire doors weren’t up to scratch, this could lead to serious damage, endangerment to life, and major financial penalties.
But a thorough fire door survey can prevent all of those scenarios from happening.
Alex MacArthur, director at North West Fire Solutions, explains what a fire door survey covers, why you need one, and how you can get one.
In this article
What is checked on a fire door survey?
What are common examples of fire door faults?
Who is responsible for fire doors?
How often do I need a fire door survey?
What do I do if my fire door is non-compliant?
What is checked on a fire door survey?
A fire door survey is all about assessing the fire-resisting elements of the door set to ensure that it’s been installed and maintained correctly so it can perform as required in the event of a fire.
There are many different types of doors out there, but, in the main, we’re checking the door set, i.e., the door frame and everything within it. We do this to make sure it’s a certified fire door and will offer the required amounts of fire resistance for a set amount of time, whether that’s 30, 60, or 90 minutes.
We’ve written a blog which explains more about fire door ratings if you want to understand more about their correlation with resistance time.
When we survey a door, we’re looking for indicators that it’s a fully certified fire door. This certification could take the form of a sticker or marker plugs, for example.
We look at components on the door, whether that be hinges or door furniture like handles, and assess how they’ve been installed. We also look at things like letterboxes, air transfer grilles, and spyholes.
How the door closes is massively important as well. We need to know if it has a proper door closer that will completely close the door once you let go of it properly. If so, this means that in the event of a fire, you can get out of the building without having to worry if the door is going to remain open. It should just close behind you.
We also look for relevant signage and other passive fire safety measures, as well as the general condition of the door.
You may have a certified fire door, but over time, doors can sustain damage, which may compromise the resistance.
Similarly, we look at the frame and the surroundings of the door to make sure there’s no damage. You could have a perfect fire door leaf, but if the frame or immediate surroundings are damaged in the fire, then fire integrity is compromised, which could cause major problems.
These are the main things we look for as part of a non-intrusive inspection.
What are common examples of fire door faults?
We see a bit of everything. If you have a fire door and there are faults with it, this is the norm.
One of the most common problems is gaps being out of tolerance. By this, I mean the gaps around the edges, as well as the top and bottom sides of the door.
When there’s a fire, the door may expand, and there should be intumescent strips that run around the side of the door that also expand under heat. These strips seal the opening properly to stop smoke from getting out into a protected escape route or other areas of the building.
As a rule of thumb, if the gap between your fire door and the frame is less than 4mm, this could compromise the door’s ability to protect your building’s escape routes. The expanded strips won’t provide enough of a seal, allowing smoke and fire to pass through more easily. Ideally, the gap should be 3mm or approximately the width of a £1 coin.
Typically, the gaps are too wide, but they can sometimes be too tight, which means any intumescent strips won’t be able to expand into a space as there’s no space to expand into.
It’s easy to underappreciate just how big of an effect being outside of these specific tolerances can have on the intended fire resistance for your door.
If you’ve got a door that’s expected to carry out its role for a minimum of 30 minutes, even something as simple as gaps being out by two or three millimetres can make a huge difference.
Most fire-related deaths are caused by smoke inhalation, and the idea of a fire door, in the main, is to protect escape routes and stop people from being exposed to excessive smoke, which is clearly extremely dangerous.
We often find that there’s a knowledge gap among those responsible for fire doors whereby they’re simply not aware of how important the fire door is in the event of a fire.
We can bring them up to speed and provide the expert guidance to keep their building as safe as possible.
Whose responsibility is it to make sure a fire door is up to standard?
A responsible person could be a number of people, and there could be more than one responsible person for a building.
Let’s say you’re a flat owner. Most issues will be picked up by the block management company for the building in which your flat is located. However, your flat’s front door typically falls under the responsibility of the leaseholder.
That said, the block management company may be better placed to arrange for a survey of your door. Purely from a cost point of view, if they were to arrange for everyone’s door to be done, this works out much cheaper than if everyone were to do it individually.
If we’re talking about fire doors with respect to a school or business premises, the responsible person is not an actual person but a body, be it:
- A private company
- A school
- The local council
Usually, the identity of the responsible person is pretty clear in the eyes of the law, but it can become muddied in terms of who commissions fire door surveys and who pays for remedial works.
Again, we’re on hand to talk you through this if you’re unsure.
How often do I need to have a fire door survey carried out?
British Standards, namely BS 8214 and BS 9999, recommend that your doors should be surveyed at least every six months—so effectively, twice a year.
Until the Fire Safety Act 2021 and Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, there was no real clarity on what people should be doing for certain types of buildings. The law is still quite vague.
As such, the B8214 and BS9999 recommendation of inspections every six months should be the go-to frequency.
The biggest change we’ve seen in recent years applies to multi-residential properties.
If someone is in a multi-residential property, such as a block of flats that’s 11 metres or above in height, their flat’s front door must be inspected once every 12 months (correct at the time of writing).
Communal doors, such as corridor doors or doors to electrical cupboards, must be checked every quarter, so every three months.
Outside of this scope, there are no specific requirements, and the frequency of inspections very much depends on the type of building you’re in.
If you’re in a hospital or school, where there’s a high amount of foot traffic and the doors are used very frequently every day, you may decide (if you’re the responsible person) that you need to do more regular checks—once a month, for example.
It’s good practice for any type of building, regardless of what the regulations stipulate, to carry out regular checks of fire doors. These checks could be a simple walk around, looking for any damage or anything obvious that jumps out.
But going back to the British Standard—if your fire doors are surveyed once every six months, this is a good starting point.
What do I do if my fire door is non-compliant?
If your door has faults, you must appoint a competent surveyor to come and look at it.
They will advise you on what faults you have and what you can potentially do about them.
This is where we come in.
Fire door surveys are one of our main services.
Our fully trained team look at lots of fire doors on a frequent basis, and we’re happy to look at any faults you’ve encountered or discuss any concerns you have.
Need a fire door survey for your building?
You can arrange for us to attend your site by calling us at 0151 665 0124 or emailing info@nwfiresolutions.co.uk.