The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 turned fire door checks in taller residential buildings into a recurring duty with a record. This guide sets out how an inspection practice runs that programme across thousands of doors without losing one.
Regulation 10 of the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, in force from 23 January 2023, requires the Responsible Person for a multi-occupied residential building over 11 metres to carry out checks of fire doors in the common parts at least every three months, and to use best endeavours to check flat entrance doors at least every twelve months. Residents in all multi-occupied residential buildings must be given information about fire doors. The checks have to be recorded, and the record has to be available to the fire and rescue authority.
For a single block that is manageable. For an inspection practice engaged by housing providers and managing agents across hundreds of blocks, it is tens of thousands of doors on two different cycles, each door with its own history of inspections and defects, and each block with a Responsible Person who will be asked for the record. A door missed in a quarter is a breach; a door with no record is indistinguishable from a door never checked.
The work itself is repetitive and physical: gaps, seals, closers, glazing, hinges, signage, the door's integrity, whether it closes fully from any angle. The failure modes are operational. Inspectors checking doors from a printed list, photographs that cannot be matched to a door, defects reported in an email that never becomes a job, and no way to show a fire officer which doors were checked when.
Start with a register: every fire door in scope, identified uniquely, with its location, type, classification and the cycle it belongs to. The register is the asset list the programme runs on. Each inspection is recorded against the door, not against the block, so a door's history is its own: when it was checked, by whom, what was found, what was done about it.
Inspections are scheduled from the register by cycle and routed by building, so an inspector arrives at a block with the list of doors due, in order, on a device. Each check is a structured form that mirrors what a competent inspection covers, with a photograph attached to each defect. A defect raises an action on the spot, with a priority and an owner, so it becomes work rather than a line in a report.
The record the Regulations require then exists as a by-product: for any block, which doors were checked in which quarter, what was found, what was fixed, and what is still open. The Responsible Person can produce it on request and the practice can show its own programme is complete, block by block, cycle by cycle.
Follow these steps to build a fire door inspection programme that runs on its own cycles and leaves the record the fire authority will ask for.
Survey each building in scope and record every fire door: a unique reference, location, whether it is a common parts door or a flat entrance door, its type and certification where known, and any defects found at the survey. The register is the foundation; a door that is not on it will not be inspected.
Common parts doors go on the quarterly cycle; flat entrance doors on the annual cycle, with the best endeavours duty recorded where access is refused. Buildings under 11 metres and non-residential premises still carry the general duty under the Order to maintain fire doors, so decide and record the cycle the practice applies to them too.
Let the cycle generate the inspections due, grouped by building and ordered by floor, so an inspector works through a block methodically. The schedule should show what is due this quarter, what has been done and what is at risk of being missed before the quarter ends.
The inspection form covers what a competent check covers: the door closes fully and latches from any angle, gaps within tolerance, intumescent strips and smoke seals intact, closer working, hinges sound, glazing intact and appropriate, signage present, no damage to the leaf or frame. Each item is answered, and each defect has its photograph attached to it on the door record.
A defect found on a door becomes an action immediately, with a priority, a target date and an owner at the Responsible Person's organisation. Urgent defects, a door that does not close or a missing door, escalate straight away. The inspector does not write a report for someone else to turn into jobs.
A defect closes when there is evidence the repair was done properly: the contractor's record, a photograph, or the inspector's own re-check at the next visit. The door's history then shows the defect, the repair and the verification, in order.
Each quarter, give the Responsible Person a record for each block: doors in scope, doors checked and when, defects found, defects closed and open, access refusals. Keep the same record for the practice. That is the document a fire officer will ask for, and it should take minutes to produce, not days.
The value of the register compounds. A door with three years of checks, two defects and two verified repairs is a door whose condition can be trusted. A door with a report from last quarter is a snapshot.
The Regulations do not prescribe a qualification for the quarterly checks, but the Responsible Person has to be able to show the checks were adequate. Inspectors trained to a recognised scheme, with their competence recorded, make that straightforward.
Two photographs of the same door, before and after, with dates, settle most questions about whether a repair was done. Attach both to the door.
A fire door that does not close is not a defect for the next report. It is an immediate risk to every person the door protects, and the Responsible Person needs to know today.
Report the state of the quarterly cycle weekly inside the practice: checked, due, at risk. The breach happens at the quarter end, and by then it is too late to recover.
The annual check of flat entrance doors is a best endeavours duty. The evidence of best endeavours is the record of attempts, notices and refusals, door by door.
Set turnaround targets for write-up, QA and issue, and timings for review reminders.
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Bring us a block and its door list and we will show you what the programme looks like: the register, the cycles, the inspection form, the defects as actions and the quarterly record.
