Fire Door Surveys Nottingham | Inspections & Prices

Blocks of flats, HMOs, student blocks and commercial buildings

Fire Door Surveys in Nottingham

A fire door survey checks every door on your escape routes, one at a time, and tells you which pass, which need adjusting and which need replacing. Published prices usually run £10 to £25 a door plus VAT, with a minimum visit fee. Tell us about the building and one local inspector gets back to you with a fixed quote.

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✓ One local inspector per enquiry✓ Fixed quote before you book✓ Door-by-door schedule of findings✓ Nottingham and Nottinghamshire

Updated October 2026

Do you need a fire door survey?

If you are responsible for a building where people sleep or work behind fire doors, you have to keep those doors working. What changes from one building to the next is how often they must be checked and whether the law sets the interval for you.

Building	What the law asks	What it means for the doors
Block of flats over 11 metres (usually 5 storeys or more)	Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, regulation 10	Communal fire doors checked every quarter. Flat entrance doors checked at least every 12 months, using best endeavours to get in, with records kept. Residents told about fire doors when they move in and every year after.
Block of flats under 11 metres with 2 or more flats	Regulation 10 information duty, plus Article 17 of the Fire Safety Order	Residents must get the fire door information. Doors must be kept in good repair, and how often they are checked follows from the fire risk assessment.
HMO	Management of HMOs (England) Regulations 2006, regulation 4	Means of escape must be “maintained in good order and repair”. A damaged door, a missing closer or a door taken off its hinges is a management breach.
Shops, offices, care homes, hotels	Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, Article 17	Fire doors must be “maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair”.

The basic checks are not the whole job. Government guidance says the regulation 10 checks “should be simple and basic”, and that caretakers and managing agents should be able to do them. The same guidance adds: “The checks are not a substitute for periodic assessment of fire doors by fire safety specialists.” A survey is that specialist assessment. Home Office fire door guidance

What a fire door survey costs

We checked 13 published price lists from fire door inspection firms across England in October 2026. These are their own advertised prices, not ours. Prices fall per door as the number of doors goes up, and most firms add a minimum charge for small jobs.

Job size	Typical published price
1 to 5 doors	£25 to £75 a door, or the minimum visit fee
6 to 20 doors	£18 to £30 a door
More than 20 doors	£10 to £25 a door
Minimum or attendance fee	£125 to £300 (some firms charge none and price small jobs higher)
Small block or HMO, up to 20 doors	About £250 to £500 in total
Intrusive inspection (frame fixings opened up)	Around £225 a door, from the one firm that publishes it

All prices exclude VAT. Your quote depends on the number of doors, how many floors and whether every flat can be reached on the day. If the building turns out different, the inspector confirms any change before starting.

The survey is the cheap part. Replacing doors is not: two leaseholders on the MoneySavingExpert forum were quoted £2,300 (2019) and £2,818.80 (2025) for new doors. A survey that tells you a door only needs new seals and an adjusted closer can save that money. See our fire risk assessment prices if you need the full assessment as well.

What the inspector checks on every door

A survey works through each door in turn and records its location, what it is and whether it passes. These are the points that decide it.

✓Certification. A label or plug, usually on the top edge, showing it is a certificated fire door. Government guidance says modern fire doors “should display a visible fire resistance rating”.
✓Gaps. Usually 2 to 4mm at the top and sides, and never more than 4mm according to the government guidance. Under the door it is often no more than 10mm, or about 3mm where smoke control is needed. A £1 coin is about 3mm thick, which is a handy rough test.
✓Seals. Intumescent strips and smoke seals present, undamaged, touching the door or frame and not painted over.
✓Hinges. At least three, firmly fixed, with no missing or loose screws.
✓Self-closer. Opened to any angle and let go, the door should close fully into its frame on its own.
✓Glazing. Fire-resisting glass and beads in good condition, with nothing cracked or missing.
✓Letterboxes and added hardware. Anything fitted after the door was made has to be suitable for a fire door and fitted to the maker’s instructions.
✓Damage. Holes, splits or repairs in the door, frame or the wall around it.
✓Signage and hold-open devices. “Fire door keep shut” signs where needed, and any hold-open device releasing when the alarm sounds.

Gaps are the most common failure. In 2021 the Fire Door Inspection Scheme reported that 75% of the doors its inspectors checked did not meet the required standard, and excessive gaps were a factor in 77% of those failures (Inside Housing, 2022).

Survey, check or fire risk assessment?

People use these words loosely, so it helps to know which one you are being asked for.

Regulation 10 check

A quick routine look at communal doors and closers, done by a caretaker, managing agent or housing officer. Required every quarter in buildings over 11 metres. It catches wedged doors and broken closers between surveys.

Fire risk assessment

Looks at the whole building: escape routes, alarm, lighting, compartments and how people get out. The assessor looks at fire doors and flags problems, but usually samples them rather than recording every door. Read more on fire risk assessments for blocks of flats.

Fire door survey

Every fire door, one by one, with a pass or fail and the repair needed. This is what your assessment often asks for when it says “fire doors to be inspected by a competent person”.

Intrusive inspection

Opens up the architrave or ironmongery to see how the frame is fixed and what is behind it. Only needed where the visual survey can’t tell whether a door or frame is sound.

What comes up in Nottingham buildings

Converted terraces let as HMOs

Nottingham City Council has licensed HMOs city-wide since January 2024, so a three-bed shared house in Lenton or Forest Fields is licensed. In these houses the closers get disconnected, doors get wedged and kitchen doors get taken off. In 2015 the landlords of Corporation Oaks student flats were fined £16,403 after inspectors found “fire doors having been removed from door frames and left leaning against walls” (My Nottingham News).

Damaged doors on the escape route

In 2016 a company letting an HMO on Alfreton Road was fined £29,000. The council’s inspection found “the integrity of the fire doors being compromised due to damage” (My Nottingham News). Kicked-in panels and screws pulled out of hinges are exactly what a survey records.

Lace Market warehouse conversions

The Lace Market’s converted warehouses are mostly 4 to 7 storeys, which puts many of them either side of the 11 metre line. Above it, the quarterly and annual regulation 10 checks apply. Older conversions can also keep original doors and glazing on the stair, which need checking against what the fire strategy assumed.

Purpose-built student blocks

Nottingham had 33,569 purpose-built student bed spaces in 2024/25, according to the city council’s own student accommodation report. Most of these blocks are over 11 metres, so every flat entrance door needs an annual check, and access between tenancies is the hard part.

Most entrance doors still haven’t been looked at. Freedom of Information data gathered by Sentry, a fire door company, and reported in March 2026 found only 46% of council flat entrance doors had been inspected even once since January 2023. Of those inspected, 63% failed the FD30 standard (Housing Management & Maintenance).

What people actually ask

“My landlord wants to charge £2300 to replace my flat entrance door with a new FD30 rated fire door and doorframe.”

A leaseholder on the MoneySavingExpert forum, 2019

Ask what the replacement is based on. If a survey found the door uncertified or beyond repair, replacement may be right. If nobody has surveyed it, a door that only needs new seals, an adjusted closer or a smaller gap can often be brought up to standard for far less. Who pays depends on your lease, which says whether the door is yours or the freeholder’s.

“I have had a letter from the local Council asking me for proof that the front door to my flat is a FD30S door.”

A landlord on Property118, 2017

The usual proof is the label or plug on the door and the paperwork from when it was fitted. If there is no label and no paperwork, a surveyor can record what the door is and what it is missing, and that report is what you send back. Sometimes the honest answer is that the door can’t be proved and has to be replaced.

“new tenants into an HMO will on average forget to grab their keys before the self closers kick in.”

An HMO landlord writing on Property118, 2013

Annoying, but the closer has to stay. A disconnected closer is one of the most common things a survey finds, and in an HMO it is a management breach. Where a door genuinely needs to stand open, ask the inspector about hold-open devices that release when the fire alarm sounds.

How to spot a weak fire door survey

✓Ask who is doing it. Since March 2026 the Fire Door Inspection Scheme has been UKAS accredited to certify individual inspectors. A certificated inspector, or one holding the Diploma in Fire Doors, has been tested on exactly this work.
✓Don’t mix up company schemes. BM TRADA Q-Mark certifies firms that install or maintain fire doors. It is a good sign in a repair contractor, but it is not an inspector qualification.
✓Expect a door-by-door schedule. Each door should have a location, a reference, a photo and a clear pass, repair or replace. A two-line summary saying “doors generally fair” is not a survey.
✓Watch for the replacement upsell. If the surveyor also sells doors, ask them to separate “repair” from “replace” and to give the reason for each replacement.
✓Check flats that weren’t reached are listed. The guidance expects you to record when access was refused, so the report should say which doors weren’t seen and why.

What happens on the day

The inspector needs to reach every fire door in the scope, including flat entrance doors if they are included. In a block, send residents a notice in advance with the date and why access is needed. In an HMO, let tenants know their room doors will be checked.

Each door is opened, closed, measured and photographed. Nothing is removed unless you have asked for an intrusive inspection. Afterwards you get the schedule of findings. Repairs are a separate job: the government guidance says they should be done “by a competent contractor as soon as reasonably practicable”.

Need the wider picture too? A fire risk assessment for your HMO covers escape routes, alarms and lighting as well as the doors.

A typical job

Three-storey HMO, Lenton

Five bedroom doors, a kitchen door, a lounge door, a door to the cellar and the front door: nine doors in all. The inspector spends a couple of hours on site. What usually comes up: gaps over 4mm on the older doors, seals painted over during redecorating, and the kitchen closer disconnected. Typical cost: £200 to £300 plus VAT, depending on the minimum visit fee.

An illustrative example based on the guidance and prices on this page. Not a real customer or property.

Fire door survey FAQs

In blocks over 11 metres, communal fire doors every quarter and flat entrance doors at least every 12 months, under the 2022 regulations. Below that height the law doesn’t set an interval, so your fire risk assessment does. The BWF-Certifire best practice guide, as quoted by the Fire Protection Association, suggests checking fire doors every six months.

The routine regulation 10 checks, yes. The government guidance says they should be simple enough not to need a specialist. It also says they are not a substitute for a periodic assessment by a fire safety specialist, which is what a survey is.

It covers them as part of the whole building and will flag obvious problems. It usually doesn’t record every door one by one. If your assessment says fire doors need inspecting by a competent person, that is a door-by-door survey.

Usually 2 to 4mm at the top and sides, and the government guidance says never more than 4mm. Under the door it should be as small as practicable, often no more than 10mm, or about 3mm where smoke control is needed. The door’s own test evidence has the final say.

It depends on the lease. Communal doors are normally the freeholder’s or management company’s, and the cost may come back through the service charge. Whether a flat entrance door belongs to the leaseholder or the freeholder is set by the lease, so check it before agreeing to a bill.

A survey tells you what is wrong. Some firms also do repairs, but you don’t have to use them. Get the schedule first, then get repair prices against it.

Get a Fire Door Survey Quote in Nottingham

Tell us about the building and roughly how many fire doors it has. One local inspector reads your enquiry and gets back to you with a fixed quote based on the details you give. No obligation.

Prefer to talk? Call 0115 647 8715 · lines are open Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.