How long does a fire door last?

What the law says, and does not say

Neither the Fire Safety Order nor the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 give a number of years. Article 17 of the Order requires the responsible person to keep fire safety equipment and devices in efficient working order and good repair. Regulation 10 sets how often doors in certain buildings must be checked.

That means a fire door does not expire on a date. What counts is its condition on the day it is looked at. We would not trust anyone who gives you a set number of years without seeing the door.

What decides how long it lasts

The big factors are use and care.

• Traffic. A door in a busy school corridor is opened and let go far more often. The hinges and closer wear faster than on a rarely used riser door.
• Maintenance. A closer that is looked after and a hinge that is tightened do their job for longer.
• Damage. Trolleys, kick plates that are missing, and holes for cables or door entry equipment all shorten a door's useful life.
• Moisture and heat. A door at the foot of a damp stair or close to a kitchen is under more stress.
• Repairs and alterations. Planing, painting, new hardware and cut outs done by people who do not know the door can undo what it was built with.

What wears out first

On most doors it is the hardware, and not the door. Closers lose power or leak. Hinges loosen and the leaf drops. Seals get painted over, torn or squashed. Latches stick. These are all repairable, and fixing them early keeps the door going.

Timber doors can also be damaged around the frame, split on the closing edge or have panels that have delaminated. Glass in a vision panel can crack.

Signs a door is near the end

A door may be beyond a sensible repair when:

• the leaf is cracked, warped, twisted or has large holes;
• the frame has moved, rotted or been cut away;
• the door has been altered in ways that cannot be reversed, for example a large hole for a different lock;
• it has no label and cannot be shown to be a fire door;
• the repair would cost close to a new doorset.

Our guide to repair or replace walks through how that is decided, and fire door repairs explains the sort of work we do.

How to get the most from a door

Check it regularly. In a block over 11 metres the regulations require communal fire doors to be checked every three months and flat entrance doors every 12, so a good log will show a door's history. A quarterly check log helps spot a closer going soft before it fails. Get a full fire door inspection done on a regular basis.

Sources

• Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, regulation 10 (fire doors)
• Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, article 17 (maintenance)