Fire door inspection for care homes and supported living in Watford
Resident bedrooms, corridors and kitchens, checked without getting in the way of the day.
Get a priceIn a care setting, the people who need to get out are not the ones who can do it quickly.
That changes what a fire door is for. It is there to hold a fire in one room long enough for staff to move residents, one at a time, to somewhere safe.
Houses used for care
Many supported living and small care settings are ordinary houses. They were built as homes and later given a new use.
We inspected 16 fire doors across three homecare properties in Hemel Hempstead and Kings Langley. They were not purpose-built care buildings. The doors had been put in at different times, by different people, and each house had its own list of faults.
That is typical. One house in a group does not tell you about the next.
What we look at
Bedroom doors first, because that is where people sleep and where the door is most likely to have been altered. Then kitchen, office and laundry doors. Then the doors along the route to the front.
- Closers turned down so the door shuts gently, and now stops short of the latch
- Doors held open with wedges, door stops or a chair
- Hinges where the screws have been swapped for ones that are too short
- Bedroom locks fitted by a handyman, with too much timber cut away
- Seals worn through where trolleys have hit the frame
Hold-open devices
Care staff often want doors held open for access. A door held open on a wedge is not a fire door while it is wedged.
There are devices that hold a door open and let it go when the fire alarm sounds. If you have them, we test whether they release. If you do not and want them, that is a talk to have with your fire risk assessor.
Working around the day
We agree times with the manager and keep to them. Residents' rooms are visited quickly, with a member of staff present where needed. We check the door and nothing else in the room.
The report has a photo and a note for each door, in language a manager can hand to a maintenance person.
Questions we get asked
Does this replace our fire risk assessment?
No. They are two separate services. The assessment looks at the whole building and how it is run. The door inspection looks hard at each door.
Can you repair the doors afterwards?
Yes, in this area. We price the repairs from the report. You can also give the report to someone else.
Send the postcode and a rough door count. You get a price back the same day.
Get a price