Fire door inspection
Condition and compliance inspection of fire doors for duty holders across Scotland's Central Belt, with a written report for every door.
Fire doors only work if every part of the assembly still does its job. Most do not fail because somebody chose the wrong door. They fail because the building has been in use for years, and doors get painted, adjusted, propped, damaged and repaired by whoever was available at the time.
An inspection tells you where you actually stand. Every door on the property is checked, recorded and given a clear outcome: compliant, remedial work required, or replacement.
What an inspection covers
Each door is assessed as a complete assembly, not just the leaf.
- Gaps and alignment
- Clearances at the head, jambs and threshold, and whether the leaf sits square in the frame.
- Intumescent and smoke seals
- Whether seals are present, continuous, undamaged and free of paint.
- Closers
- Whether the door closes fully from any angle and latches without assistance.
- Hinges
- Number, condition, fixings, and whether they are fire rated.
- Glazing and apertures
- Glazing type, beading and whether any aperture has been cut after manufacture.
- Ironmongery
- Handles, locks, latches and whether components are compatible with the certified assembly.
- Frame and fixings
- Frame condition, packing, and how the frame is fixed to the structure.
- Signage
- Correct mandatory signage, present and legible.
- Damage and modification
- Impact damage, unauthorised holes, cut-outs and previous repairs.
DETAIL — gap between leaf and frame being measured with a gauge
Specification
- Rating
- E 30 Sa
- Fire resistance duration
- Short
- Test standard
- BS EN 1634-1
How often fire doors need inspecting in Scotland
Fire safety duties in Scotland sit with the duty holder under the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 and the Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations 2006, enforced by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.
There is no fixed national inspection timetable written into Scottish law. The interval comes from your fire risk assessment, and depends on the building, how it is used and how much traffic the doors take. A quiet office and a student HMO with the same doors will not need the same frequency.
This is where most online guidance goes wrong. Almost all of it is written for England and quotes English inspection frequencies that have no application in Scotland. If you have been given a schedule by a contractor working to English rules, it is worth checking whether it reflects your actual risk assessment.
Where written records matter: a fire risk assessment must be recorded in writing where five or more people are employed.
What actually fails
Certification covers the complete installed assembly. Glazing apertures, intumescent strips, frames, hinges and ironmongery all affect whether a door performs the way it was tested to perform.
That is why doors fail for reasons that are invisible from across a corridor. A gap a few millimetres too wide. A closer that no longer pulls the door onto the latch. Seals painted over during redecoration. Hinges replaced with something that was never part of the certified set. A vision panel cut into a door after it left the factory.
None of these are dramatic. All of them mean the door will not hold for as long as the design assumed.
The report
A record for every door
Location, door reference, condition and outcome, so the report matches the building rather than describing it in general terms.
Clear outcomes
Each door marked as compliant, requiring remedial work, or requiring replacement. No ambiguity about what needs doing.
Photographic evidence of faults
The defects found, recorded, so you can see what we saw.
REPORT — written inspection report on a desk or clipboard
Buildings we inspect
After the inspection
Where doors need work, we can carry out the remedial repairs or replacement, or you can pass the report to your own contractor. There is no obligation either way.
Where doors are compliant, we can set up a maintenance schedule so they stay that way, because the faults above develop through ordinary use rather than through neglect.
Common questions
It depends on the number of doors and how accessible they are. A small HMO may take under an hour. A large residential block or a care home is usually a scheduled visit across a day or more.