Fire door compliance is an evidence problem before it is a hardware problem. A building can hold correctly specified doors, correctly installed, and still be unable to demonstrate it, and demonstration is what is asked for after an incident and during an audit. Four things carry it: specification, installation, maintenance and record.
Specification
The door has to be the right door for its location, which comes from the building's fire strategy and from the guidance the building was designed against. Where that information was never handed over, the duty holder has to reconstruct it, and a survey is the ordinary way. A building that cannot say why each door is the rating it is has a gap at the first step.
Installation
Certified doorsets perform as tested only when installed as tested. Frame fixings, packing, gap tolerances and hardware all sit here, and installation defects are the largest single category found in fire door surveys. Installer certification schemes exist because this is where the performance is most often lost, and because it is invisible once the architrave is on.
Maintenance and use
Closers that have been disconnected, doors held open on wedges, seals painted over, latches taped back, holes drilled for cabling, kick plates fitted with through fixings. Every one of these is a change made by an occupant or a trade for a practical reason, and every one of them can end the door's performance. This is where an occupied building loses compliance quietly.
Record
The check regime, the results, the defects found and what was done about them. Where a building is in scope of the check duties for residential blocks, the frequency is specified and the record is the evidence. Everywhere else the maintenance duty still applies and the record is still the only way to show it was met.
Questions people ask about fire door compliance
Is there a fire door compliance certificate?
There is no single certificate. What exists is product certification for the doorset, installer certification for the fitting, and the building's own inspection and maintenance record.
How often should fire doors be checked?
In residential buildings above the height threshold the frequency is set by regulation and differs between common parts doors and flat entrance doors. Elsewhere it is set by the risk assessment, and quarterly is common practice in busy buildings.
Who is responsible?
The responsible person under the fire safety order, which is normally the employer, owner or occupier with control of the premises. Appointing a contractor does not move the duty.
Where does a fire door risk assessment fit beside the fire risk assessment?
The fire risk assessment decides that the doors are a measure the building relies on. A fire door risk assessment is the narrower exercise that establishes whether each door can actually do the job, door by door, and it is what the wider assessment should be relying on rather than assuming.
What does a fire door assessment actually record?
Every door located and identified, the result against each element of it, what evidence of specification was found or not found, and a defect list separated into what was corrected on the day, what is quoted and what remains open. A figure for the percentage compliant, with no door schedule under it, records nothing anybody can act on.