How do you get a building ready for a fire door inspection?

Before the day

Make a door list. Count the fire doors and note where each one is. A floor plan with the doors marked is ideal. If you have door numbers from an earlier survey, send them, so the new report matches the old one and you can see what has changed. A rough count is enough for a quote, and the inspector confirms the real number on the day.

Find the doors people forget. Riser and meter cupboards, plant rooms, bin stores, stair doors, doors to the roof, store rooms and the doors at the ends of corridors are often left off lists. They are fire doors too.

Send what you have. The latest fire risk assessment, any earlier fire door report and any certificates or installation records help. They tell the inspector which doors the assessor was worried about and which are meant to be FD30 or FD30S. If you have none of these, say so. It does not stop the inspection.

Sort out keys and access. Locked cupboards, plant rooms and roof access are the usual reasons doors get missed. Have keys or fobs ready, or someone on site who can open them.

Name a contact. One person on site who knows the building and can let the inspector in saves a lot of time.

Flats and shared buildings

In a block of flats, the doors that matter most are often behind residents' front doors. Government guidance says to arrange access with residents in advance and to offer a range of times. Both sides of each flat entrance door need to be checked. Send a notice with the date, the time window and who is coming, and put a follow-up message up in the entrance hall the day before.

Keep a record of who was told, when, and which flats gave no access. The regulations ask the responsible person to keep a record of steps taken where access is refused. A second visit for the flats that were missed is common, and a decent notice period cuts it down.

On the day

• Take wedges, door stops and anything else holding a fire door open away. Door stops hold doors off their latches, so they get recorded as faults.
• Clear both sides of each door. Boxes, bikes, prams and bin bags in front of a door stop it opening or closing, and the inspector cannot measure the gaps.
• Turn off or release hold-open devices that are wired to the alarm only if the building's staff know how to. Do not disconnect fire safety equipment for us.
• Leave doors as they are. Do not repaint, adjust or fix seals just before the visit. The report should show what the doors are really like, and fresh paint over seals is itself a fault.
• Keep key staff out of the way of the inspector, but be available for questions.

What happens next

The inspector measures the gaps, checks seals, hinges, closers, glazing, signage and certification on each door, and records the results with photographs. See what a fire door inspector checks. You get a report that lists the defects door by door. Our guide on how to read a fire door report explains the layout, and what to do after a failed fire door inspection covers the next step.

Sources

• Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022: fire door guidance (GOV.UK)