Fire door inspections and repairs in the Thames Valley

What fire door work costs in the Thames Valley

A rough guide, plus VAT:

• Fire door inspection: from £250 + VAT for a small building. Larger buildings are priced on the number of doors.
• Repairs after a failed inspection: usually £150 to £900 a door, depending on the fault and how many doors are done on one visit.
• A new fire door or complete FD30S doorset: typically £2,500 to £4,500 fitted, depending on size, glazing and ironmongery.

You get a fixed price for your building before anything is booked, worked out from the door count, your report or photos. The inspection price is the same across the region, with no travel charge.

What we find when we inspect fire doors

• 72% of the fire doors we inspect on a first visit need at least one repair (339 of 470 doors, 8 surveys).
• 42% had a gap of more than 4mm between the leaf and the frame (156 of 371 doors measured). Government guidance says the gap should be no more than 4mm.
• One door in four had a gap of more than 8mm under the door (86 of 343 doors measured).
• The most common faults on failed doors: gaps (39%), intumescent strips and smoke seals (35%), thresholds and drop seals (16%), closers (13%) and signage (11%).
• Most failed doors can be repaired. On three finished repair programmes we repaired 140 of 147 doors and replaced 7.

Source: DC Fire & Security inspection records, 724 door inspections in 10 itemised surveys, September 2025 to October 2026. Updated October 2026. Full figures and method: fire door inspection statistics 2026.

Recent fire door work in the Thames Valley

Real jobs, with client names left out.

• Hotel, Reading (130 doors, Sep 2026). A full inspection of the fire doors in a working hotel. 101 doors needed work. 20 doors on escape routes had glazing that could not be confirmed as fire rated, and none of the doors carried a certification label. Every door was given a priced repair line.
• Offices, Reading town centre (27 doors, 2026). Inspection, then the remedial works, then a re-check on 1 July: survey to sign-off on fixed prices.
• Flat entrance doors, Reading (2026). Replacement and repair of leaseholders' flat entrance doors priced from photos, without a visit.

Reading and Oxford HMO licensing and your fire doors

• Reading: an additional HMO licensing scheme came into force on 1 March 2026 and runs to February 2031. It covers HMOs with 3 or 4 people from 2 or more households, on top of mandatory licensing for larger HMOs.
• Oxford: the whole city has had additional HMO licensing since 2011. It was renewed for five more years from 25 June 2026, and covers HMOs with 3 or more occupiers.

Licence holders must keep fire safety measures in good order, and fire doors with working self-closers are a core part of that. Our report gives you a door-by-door record with a photo of each door. More in our HMO fire safety guide and fire doors for HMOs.

Buildings we inspect across the Thames Valley

• Blocks of flats managed by housing associations, councils and managing agents
• Student HMOs and halls in Reading and Oxford
• Hotels and serviced apartments
• Offices, business parks and industrial units, including the Slough Trading Estate
• Schools, academies and colleges, including listed buildings where doors should be repaired, not replaced
• Care homes and supported living

How often fire doors must be checked

In blocks of flats over 11 metres, communal fire doors must be checked every three months and flat entrance doors every year (Regulation 10, Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022). In schools, offices, hotels, care homes and smaller blocks, the fire risk assessment sets how often, and six-monthly is common for busy buildings. Checks between inspections can be done by a trained caretaker or manager using a checklist like our fire door checklist. More detail: how often fire doors need inspecting.

What we check on every door

• Gaps around the door measured at the head and both sides, and under the door
• The self-closer: does it close the door fully and latch it from any angle
• Intumescent strips and smoke seals: present, the right size and not painted over
• Hinges: at least three, fire rated, with every screw in place
• Latch, lock and any letterplate or viewer: fire rated and fitted properly
• Glazing and beads: fire rated glass, firmly held
• The leaf and frame: damage, holes, cut-outs or signs it was never a fire door
• The label or plug that shows who made the door and its rating, where there is one
• Fire door signage on both faces where it is needed

Inspections are carried out to BS 8214, the code of practice for fire door assemblies. The report gives the overall result on page one, every fault with a photo and a deadline, and a page for each door, with gaps measured in millimetres. See a demo report.

Inspection, then repairs from anyone's report

You do not have to use us for the repairs. Send us any inspection report or FRA action list with photos of the doors and we price it door by door, usually the same day. If we do the repairs, every door gets before and after photos and a completion record for your fire risk assessment. See fire door repairs and what to do when a door fails.

Towns we cover in the Thames Valley

Next door: fire doors in Hertfordshire, fire doors in Bedfordshire and fire doors in the East Midlands. Across the UK: fire door inspections.