Fire Doors
Course Overview
This short course provides you with an introduction to fire doors in the workplace and why they play an important part in fire safety planning. It’ll also look at the different types of fire doors and importance of fire door maintenance.
Course Content
Fire door maintenance in England and Wales sits under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (the Fire Safety Order), the foundation of UK fire safety law. The Fire Safety Order places the duty for fire safety, including fire door maintenance, on the "Responsible Person" for a building. Article 17 of the Order requires a suitable maintenance regime to keep relevant equipment, including fire doors, in an efficient working state.
The Fire Safety Act 2021 amended the Fire Safety Order to put beyond doubt that it covers a building's structure and external walls, and doors between individual flats and common parts in multi-occupied residential buildings. The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 then set out specific inspection requirements for high-rise residential buildings.
A fire door is a specifically constructed and certified door designed to hold back fire and smoke for a defined period, commonly 30 or 60 minutes. A genuine fire door relies on several components working together: the door leaf itself, intumescent seals, smoke seals, self-closing devices, and correctly fitted ironmongery and glazing. If any one of these elements is missing or damaged, most notably a fire door propped open or fitted with the wrong hinges, the door's fire rating can be compromised.
- Communal fire doors in residential buildings over 11 metres or 5 storeys. Under the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, checked at least quarterly.
- Flat entrance doors in the same buildings. Checked at least annually.
- All other non-domestic premises. No fixed statutory frequency, but must be kept in efficient working order as part of the building's fire risk assessment.
The Responsible Person, as defined under the Fire Safety Order, carries overall legal responsibility for fire door maintenance and inspection, even where day-to-day checks are delegated to other staff.
Fire Doors covers what a fire door actually is, why fire doors matter and the risk created when they're not properly maintained, how to control fire doors day to day, and the importance of ongoing fire door maintenance.
Course Duration
40 mins
Course Certification
