Fire door maintenance and servicing contracts

How often do fire doors need maintenance?

Check them regularly and fix faults as soon as they are found. In blocks of flats over 11 metres, communal fire doors must be checked at least every 3 months and flat entrance doors at least once a year, as far as the responsible person can. Elsewhere the fire risk assessment sets the interval, and busy doors need checking more often.

On a first visit, 72% of the doors we inspect need at least one repair (339 of 470 doors), so a door that has not been looked at for a year usually needs work. Our guide on how often fire doors need inspecting covers the intervals for each type of building.

What does the law say about fire door maintenance?

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 says fire safety equipment, including fire doors, must be kept in efficient working order and good repair. The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 add set checks in blocks of flats over 11 metres.

The checks must be recorded. A report with a photo and a result for each door is the simplest way to show the work was done.

What staff can check themselves, and what to leave to a professional

Government guidance says the routine checks are basic and visual, need no tools, and can be done by a caretaker, managing agent, housing officer or maintenance person who has been shown what to look for. A fire door specialist is not needed for them. What the guidance asks the person checking to do:

• Look at the door, frame, glazing and hinges for damage, and for missing or loose screws
• Look at the gaps round the door: at the head and sides they should never be more than 4mm, and at the bottom as small as practicable without the door catching the floor
• Check that intumescent strips and smoke seals are undamaged, touch the door edge or frame, and are not painted over
• Test the closer: open the door fully and let go, then open it to about 15 degrees and let go. It should close fully into the frame both times
• Look for signs the door has been replaced or altered
• Keep a record, including any flat where you could not get access, and what you did to try

Anything beyond that is a job for a competent contractor: gaps that are wrong all round, a leaf that has been cut, glazing that may not be rated, hinges that do not match, and doors that are not labelled. An inspection measures and photographs all of these. Repairs found on a check go to fire door repairs or, where a door cannot be saved, fire door installation.

What happens on a fire door maintenance visit?

Each door is checked against the same list, small faults are fixed on the spot where you have agreed it, and you get a report with photos of every door.

• Gaps measured round the frame and under the door
• Intumescent strips and smoke seals checked for damage, gaps and paint
• Self-closers checked to close the door fully from any angle
• Hinges, locks, latches and hold-open devices checked
• Glazing, signage and the certification label checked
• Doors that need more than a quick fix are listed and priced separately

A year of maintenance

This is a suggested rhythm, not a legal one. Only the 3-month and 12-month checks in tall blocks of flats come from regulation 10.

What usually needs fixing?

Small things, most of the time. Across our inspections the most common faults were gaps round the frame, damaged or painted-over seals, closers that did not shut the door and missing signs. Regular maintenance keeps these faults small. The full figures are on our fire door inspection statistics page, and the repair-or-replace results are in our guide to repairing or replacing a failed fire door.

What undoes good maintenance

Most doors that fail an inspection did not start out faulty. Something was done to them afterwards.

New flooring is laid and the bottom of the door is planed to clear it. A resident takes the closer off because it is noisy, or wedges the door open for a delivery. The corridor is redecorated and the seals are painted over. A cable run goes through the frame and the gap is left. A lock is swapped for a cheaper one that was never tested on that door.

Your maintenance routine should catch each of these. Brief the decorators and building contractors before work starts, and ask for the doors to be checked after they leave.

How is a fire door maintenance contract priced?

It is priced on the number of doors and how often they are visited, and it depends on the size and type of building. We start with a full inspection, which for a small building typically starts from around £250 + VAT, and then quote a price per visit for the contract.

Repairs found on a visit are priced door by door from the fault and the number of doors done together. Small adjustments can be included in the visit price if you want them done on the day. We confirm the price once we have seen the doors.

Who carries out the work?

Inspections and routine maintenance follow BS 8214 and the door manufacturer's instructions, with photos of every door before and after. Where your managing agent, council or insurer asks for third-party certificated work, repairs and new doorsets are done by our BM TRADA / FIRAS-certificated contractors and the certificate goes in your fire safety file.

What a maintenance record should show

Whoever checked, on what date, which doors, and what was found. Add a photo of anything that failed and a note of what was done and when. For a block of flats, add the flats that could not be accessed and the steps taken to get in.

Sources

• GOV.UK: Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, fire door guidance
• The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, regulation 10
• Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, article 17: maintenance