FIRE DOOR SURVEYS
Accredited and Qualified Fire Door Inspectors
Rhodes specialise in surveying fire doors and frames. This includes front entrance doors-sets, emergency doors, plant room, risers, communal, bedroom and corridor doors.
All our surveys are fully work-programmed with the main client. Our well-trained fire door inspectors methodically work through a building, utilising the latest technology and software to manage inspections onsite and record the data in real time. We dynamically capture the essential details and condition of each door, creating a database for future ongoing inspections.
Areas of non-compliance are visually highlighted in a way that allows organisations to prioritise maintenance activity and expenditure. This is primarily to accommodate budget constraints, while demonstrating an understanding of the nature and scale of the problem.
It creates a door schedule, as required by RRO, and records the history of each door to provide information for analysis, both in terms of fire compliance and ongoing remedial cost. This is a unique system that allows a robust and highly cost-effective maintenance plan to be developed and managed for the lifecycle of the building.
This ensures fire compliance can not only be achieved, but also maintained and recorded to satisfy Fire Service Enforcement Officers (FSEO), building control and other external bodies.
During a fire door inspection our technicians inspect each component of the fire door assembly including:
- Door leaf
- Door frame
- Door closer (self-closing devices)
- Hinges
- Intumescent door strip and cold smoke seals
- Glazing (vision panels)
- Locks and levers/handles
- Fire safety signage
- Hold open devices
- Gaps around the doors and threshold gaps
- Panic hardware devices for external final fire exit doors
Upon completion of fire door and final fire exit door inspections, a report is produced detailing the condition of each door and listing the areas of non-compliance, which in turn creates a register for future on-going inspections.
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 outlines the legal obligations of the responsible person. It covers all maintenance of all elements of fire safety provisions within buildings. In BS8214 (c.13) and BS9999 (Annex L), routine inspections of fire doors are highlighted as necessary to maintain fire safety in buildings.
The Importance of Inspections to Fire Doors
The key to passive fire protection is to contain the fire to a particular compartment or room, giving occupants enough time to escape and the fire service enough time to enter the building and tackle the fire. Designed to prevent the fire or smoke from spreading, a fire door is one of the most important fire safety products on your premises.
Due to the nature of fire doors being used in a functional way on a regular basis, there is a greater risk of damage and abuse, seriously compromising the fire protection in your building. This is why it’s key to ensure regular surveys and remediation, preventing the need for replacement, and more importantly, ensuring your buildings remain compliant.
Frequently Asked Questions
We've put together some of the commonly asked questions about our Fire Door Supply & Installation service, but if you can't find the answers you're looking for, please feel free to click the button to get in touch.
Yes. Our fire door installers are certificated and hold the BM TRADA Q-Mark from the Fire Door Installation/Maintenance scheme.
At Rhodes, we always prioritise repair over replacement and over the last 5 years, we have remediated 60% of all fire doors – only installing new ones when necessary.
Due to the nature of fire doors being used in a functional way on a regular basis, they are at greater risk of damage and abuse, seriously compromising the fire protection in your building. This is why it’s key to ensure regular inspections and remediation, preventing the need for replacement, and more importantly, ensuring your buildings remain compliant.
Fire door surveys are a necessary process, designed to save lives and protect property. Because fire doors form an integral part of effective compartmentation its important that they are regularly maintained.
A Fire door survey will identify any areas of non-compliance in both new and existing fire doors, in order to allow building owners and operators to take remedial action. All our experts at Rhodes Fire Door are third-party accredited to conduct extensive surveys that cover all elements of a fire door and its surrounding frame.
Simply put, you need a fire door survey to protect life, preserve property and remain legally compliant with building codes. For example, under BS9999, a fire door inspection is recommended every six months. This is to ensure your passive fire protection system remains effective.
Legislation introduced in 2006 places a responsibility on building owners and operators to ensure their buildings have adequate fire protection. This includes the installation and maintenance of fire doors.
Because fire doors tend to be in constant use, they are inevitably more prone to wear and tear than other types of fire protection, such as fire extinguishers; which is why a fire door survey is useful to ensure they continue to save lives and protect property.
Rhodes Fire Door Services covers every element of a fire door as part of the survey. This includes:
- The door leaf
- The door frame (including any gaps)
- Any glass and/or glazing intumescent fire and smoke seals
- Any ironmongery (for example self-closing devices, hinges, latches, locks etc)
- Relevant signage
Our surveys and inspections can be tailored to meet your specific needs in to order keep the property safe and compliant. The fire door inspectors will make a note of the door ID and rating and capture all data in live mode with full client access throughout the process – this allows you to keep on top of planned preventative maintenance as well as keeping an accurate audit trail of inspections and any remedial work.
Article 17 of the Fire Safety Order 2005 relates to fire safety in non-domestic premises and requires a suitable maintenance regime to ensure relevant equipment is kept in an efficient state.
In other words, it is a legal requirement to have correctly installed and maintained fire doors.
Any premises that do not have fire doors that are fit for purpose, can be closed down by local authorities with the owners being prosecuted for failing to comply with the Fire Safety Order 2005, which can also result in a criminal conviction.
Regular inspections are required by a certified and competent person to ensure fire doors remain in good working order to save lives and protect property.
Rhodes Fire Door services can help with this – all our Fire Door inspectors are fully accredited and certified and hold the BM TRADA Q-Mark from the Fire Door Installation/Maintenance Scheme.
This sometimes depends on the property, but the general advice is to ensure fire doors are inspected every six months.
If the property is a new-build or newly occupied building, things will still be settling so more frequent surveys are recommended. Similarly, doors that are in areas of high usage should be checked more frequently to ensure they remain in good working order.
Depending on how much usage they get, we would recommend these doors are checked weekly to ensure they’re in good working order – this can be a visual inspection while a more thorough survey needs to take place once every 6 months to ensure fire doors are adequately maintained and compliant.