Fire door inspection in Kingston
A gauge on every gap, a photo of every door, and a report your assessor can actually use. Price back the same day.
Get a priceStand at the bottom of the stairs in a split Victorian house on a Kingston side road and look up.
Three flat doors, maybe four. One is original, cut down and painted so many times the edges have gone soft. One came from a builders merchant in about 2004. The newest has a nice brass letterbox somebody fitted themselves, straight through the middle.
All of them are supposed to hold back fire and smoke while the people upstairs get out. That staircase is the only way down.
This is the kind of thing we check. Send us a postcode and a rough number of doors and you will get a price the same day.
Who tends to need this in Kingston
Landlords with student houses near Penrhyn Road or Kingston Hill, usually because a licence condition or an agent has raised it.
Freeholders of converted houses in Norbiton, Canbury and up towards Surbiton, often after a fire risk assessment came back with a line about the doors.
Owners of shops on Clarence Street, Eden Street and around the Market Place with flats or offices upstairs.
Managing agents who need a proper record for a block and do not have anyone on the books who can do it.
An inspection, start to finish
We start at the top of the building and work down. Each door gets a reference, so the report matches what is on site.
Out comes the gauge. Top edge, hanging side, closing side, at several points, because a door that drops on its hinges will be 2mm at one end and 6mm at the other. Then the bottom gap.
Next we look for proof of what the door is. A plug or label on the top edge or hinge side. A mark etched in the glass. Sometimes there is nothing at all, and we write that down too.
Every hinge, every screw. Seals and intumescent strip all the way round the frame. Holes where an old lock came out. Filler that is hiding something.
Finally we open it up and let go. It should come back and latch without anyone touching it. Plenty stop an inch short.
The report you get
One page per door, near enough, with photos. Pass or fail, the faults listed, and how urgent each one is.
A door that needs its closer adjusted reads very differently from a door that should come out, and we make that plain.
Hand it to your fire risk assessor, your managing agent or your insurer. It does not need translating.
Our own crew does repairs in and around London, and we can price them straight from that report. You are welcome to use your own carpenter instead.
Who is in charge of the doors
In a block or converted house, the responsible person is normally the freeholder or whoever manages the common parts. That person has duties under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, and since the Fire Safety Act 2021 those duties reach flat entrance doors too.
London Fire Brigade is the enforcing authority for all of the Royal Borough of Kingston. Its inspectors can ask to see how the doors are being managed.
Where a residential building is over 11 metres, the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 bring in fixed checks. Communal doors every three months. Flat entrance doors every twelve, using best endeavours to get in.
Most Kingston conversions are under that height. The doors still have to work.
Rough cost
A small building generally comes in from around £250 plus VAT.
Bigger jobs depend on the door count and how hard the doors are to reach. A house of students who are out at lectures is one thing. Twenty leaseholders who all want a different day is another.
Tell us what you have and we will give you a real number.
We drive down from Luton, so we have no office in Kingston. We try to put a few jobs in the area on one day.
Questions we get asked
Is a door inspection the same as a fire risk assessment?
No. Two separate services. The assessment looks at the whole building and how people get out. We look at each door in close detail. Having one does not tick off the other.
Do you need the whole building empty?
No. We need a few minutes at each door. For flat doors someone has to let us in or leave a key with the agent.
What if a door has no label?
Then nobody can prove what it is. We will tell you how we would treat that door and what your options are.
Buildings we inspect
Where we go
Kingston and the places around it, on both sides of the river. We drive down from Luton and try to group visits on the same day.
Send us the postcode and a rough door count. You will have a price the same day.
Get a price