Fire risk assessment and fire door inspection package from £249

Fire doors are the single most common serious defect we find in London residential blocks, and they are the item a fire risk assessment is least able to close out on its own. A general assessment records the condition of a sample of doors; it does not produce the numbered, photographed, door-by-door record that a managing agent needs to demonstrate compliance, to instruct a joiner, or to answer an enforcement officer. Buying the assessment and the door survey together means the assessor's finding and the evidence supporting it arrive in the same pack, in the same week, from the same firm — and the remedial schedule can be priced immediately instead of after a second mobilisation.

The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, which came into force on 23 January 2023, impose duties on the responsible person for buildings containing two or more domestic premises. In blocks with storeys over 11 metres in height, the responsible person must undertake checks of fire doors in the communal parts at least quarterly, and must use best endeavours to check flat entrance doors at least annually. In all multi-occupied residential buildings with communal areas, residents must be given information about the importance of fire doors and about not tampering with self-closing devices. Best endeavours is a real standard: it means keeping a record of attempts to gain access, not simply noting that nobody answered. Our schedule records access attempts alongside the inspections, because that record is what gets produced if the duty is ever questioned.

Each door is given a number that stays with it across future inspections, photographed, and assessed against the criteria that determine whether it will actually hold back fire and smoke for its rated period. We look at the leaf and frame for damage, warping and unfilled apertures; the gap around the leaf, measured, not estimated; intumescent strips and cold smoke seals for continuity and damage; hinges for the correct number, type and fixings; the self-closing device and whether the door closes fully onto the latch from any angle; glazing and beading; the presence and integrity of the latch and any locks; signage; and, for flat entrance doors, whether the door has been replaced without permission and what evidence of certification exists. Where we cannot verify a door's rating without destructive inspection we say so rather than guessing.

A combined pack: the PAS 79 fire risk assessment for the building, and a fire door schedule listing every door with its number, location, type, photograph, findings and the specific remedy needed — adjust closer, replace seals, fill aperture, replace leaf — with each item risk-rated so you know what has to happen this month and what can wait for the next budget cycle. The schedule is issued as a spreadsheet as well as a PDF so it can be sent straight to a contractor for pricing, and it forms the baseline for your quarterly checks. We can carry out those quarterly checks under a programme, or hand you a checklist so a competent site team can do them and keep the record themselves.

In the London blocks we survey, the recurring failures are consistent and mostly cheap: self-closers disconnected or adjusted so far down that the door stops an inch short of the latch; cross-corridor doors wedged or held open on hooks; intumescent strips painted over or missing entirely after redecoration; gaps at the head or hinge side well over the 3mm tolerance; unfilled letterbox and spyhole apertures in replaced flat entrance doors; hinges with only two of the three intended, or with screws that do not bite. Individually each looks minor. Together, on a single stairwell, they are the difference between a compartment holding and a corridor filling with smoke.

The package starts at £249 for a small building and is priced on the number of doors and the number of storeys, not on guesswork. For a typical London block of twenty flats with a communal stair, expect the assessment plus a full communal door survey in one morning. Ongoing quarterly checks are quoted as an annual programme with a fixed per-visit price and automatic reminders, so nothing lapses. Where a block is over 11 metres we set the calendar up to match Regulation 10 exactly: four communal inspections a year and one flat entrance door round, with the access-attempt record maintained for you.