Fire Risk Assessment for Hotels in Nottingham

Hotels, guest houses, B&Bs, serviced apartments and short-let properties. Sleeping risk premises assessed to the standard they actually require, not a commercial template.

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✓ Sleeping risk specialists✓ Guest PEEP arrangements✓ Night staffing reviewed✓ Written report in 5 days

Sleeping Risk Changes Everything

A hotel is the hardest ordinary building to evacuate. Your occupants are asleep, they do not know the layout, they may have been drinking, and they will not be at their most rational at three in the morning. That combination puts hotels and guest houses in the highest-scrutiny category under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

The relevant Government guidance is Fire Safety Risk Assessment: Sleeping Accommodation. It sets a materially higher bar than the guidance for offices or shops – on detection coverage, on the protection of escape routes, and on what management arrangements have to be in place overnight.

Short lets and serviced apartments are not exemptIf you let self-contained accommodation on a short-term basis, the Fire Safety Order applies to the common parts and, depending on the arrangement, to the units themselves. Operators running several flats as short lets frequently assume domestic rules apply. They generally do not, and Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service has the same enforcement powers over a serviced apartment block as over a hotel.

Nottingham has a substantial visitor economy and a correspondingly wide range of accommodation – city-centre chain hotels, Lace Market boutique conversions, guest houses along the Mansfield Road and Derby Road corridors, and a growing number of serviced apartments. The risk profile differs sharply between them.

What We Assess

✓Automatic fire detection – normally L1 or L2 coverage, including every guest bedroom
✓Protected escape routes and whether corridors can stay usable long enough
✓Bedroom doors – FD30S rating, self-closing devices, intumescent strips and smoke seals
✓Alarm audibility in bedrooms with the door closed and the guest asleep
✓Emergency lighting throughout escape routes and stairways
✓Commercial kitchen – extraction canopy cleaning, deep fat fryers, suppression
✓Laundry – tumble dryer lint, siting and out-of-hours operation
✓Bar and function rooms, including occupancy limits and exit capacity
✓Night staffing levels and what one member of staff can realistically achieve
✓Arrangements for guests with mobility, hearing or visual impairments
✓Staff training, fire marshal cover and drill records
✓Guest information – what is actually on the back of the bedroom door

The Corridor Is the Whole Strategy

In most hotels the escape strategy depends on one thing: a guest can open their bedroom door, enter the corridor, and walk out. Everything else supports that.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Guests

A sounder-only alarm does not wake a guest who cannot hear it. Hotels are expected to hold vibrating pad alarms or equivalent, to ask about requirements at booking, and to know which room a guest needing one has been allocated to. This is a frequent gap – the equipment is often in a cupboard, but nobody has a process for identifying who needs it.

Nottingham Accommodation Stock

Lace Market conversions

Former warehouses converted to boutique hotels and apartments. Open stairwells, original timber structure and exposed brick are attractive and complicate compartmentation. Some city-centre premises also sit above sandstone cellars, which we check rather than assume are ordinary basements.

Victorian guest houses

Common along Mansfield Road, Derby Road and in the Park area. Typically three or four storeys with a single staircase, which makes protection of that stair the central issue and bedroom door specification non-negotiable.

Serviced apartments and short lets

Often converted from offices or flats. The question is whether the escape strategy is stay-put or simultaneous evacuation, and whether the compartmentation supports the answer. Assumptions inherited from a residential conversion frequently do not survive contact with short-let use.

Pubs with letting rooms

The combination that most often goes unassessed. A commercial kitchen and a bar below sleeping accommodation is a significant risk, and the licensee is usually the responsible person whether or not they realise it.

Pricing

Premises	Starting price	Notes
Guest house or B&B – up to 6 rooms	From £350	Sleeping risk assessment
Small hotel – 7 to 20 rooms	From £500	Written report included
Medium hotel – 21 to 50 rooms	From £750	Multi-floor, full escape review
Large hotel – 50+ rooms	POA	Quote on request
Serviced apartments	From £400	Per building
Pub with letting rooms	From £400	Kitchen and bar included

Visiting without disrupting guestsWe do not need every bedroom empty. A representative sample of room types plus all common areas, plant, kitchen and escape routes is normally sufficient for a Type 1 assessment. Mid-week mornings after checkout tend to work best. If you need us outside those hours, say so and we will arrange it.

How to Spot a Bad Fire Risk Assessment

There is a pattern in this industry worth knowing about before you book anyone, including us. An assessor quotes noticeably below everyone else, spends a short time on site, and produces a report listing a long set of deficiencies. The following day an email arrives quoting for the remedial works. The assessment was never really the product.

Our position on thisWe do not sell fire doors, alarm systems, extinguishers, signage or any other remedial work. We have no financial interest in what the assessment finds. If your building is compliant, the report says so.

Warning signs worth taking seriously

!A quote given without asking about the size, layout or use of the building
!An inspection that takes twenty minutes for a large or multi-storey premises
!A report that arrives alongside, or just before, a quote for remedial works
!Findings that do not match the building, or generic wording that could describe anywhere
!Existing compliant equipment not recorded, making the premises look worse than it is
!No register number, no professional indemnity limit, no sample report offered

Six questions to ask any assessor

Ask these of us and of whoever else you are considering. A competent assessor answers all six without hesitation: their register number and tier under BS 8674:2025 and the IFSM register; their professional indemnity limit; whether you can see a sample report; whether they have assessed this building type before; whether they sell the works they recommend; and which type of assessment, Type 1 to Type 4, you are being quoted for.

Get a Free Quote

Tell us about your premises and a local assessor will get back to you with a fixed quote and available dates. No obligation.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Normally an L1 or L2 automatic fire detection system, meaning coverage that includes every guest bedroom rather than escape routes alone. The exact category depends on the building’s layout, the escape strategy and the risk assessment findings. Detection limited to corridors is rarely sufficient in sleeping accommodation.

In almost all cases yes – typically FD30S, meaning 30 minutes’ fire resistance with smoke seals, fitted with a self-closing device. The bedroom door is what keeps a fire inside the room long enough for everyone else to use the corridor, which is why a wedged-open or damaged bedroom door is treated as a serious finding rather than a minor one.

Yes. The Fire Safety Order applies to any premises providing sleeping accommodation to paying guests, including small bed and breakfasts run from a private home. The assessment can be proportionate to the size of the premises, but it is still legally required and must be written down if you employ five or more people.

You need a practical arrangement, normally vibrating pad alarms or an equivalent, together with a process for identifying at booking which guests require one and which room they are in. Holding the equipment is not enough on its own if nobody knows who needs it – the assessment looks at the process as well as the hardware.

Generally yes. Short-term letting of self-contained units brings the premises within the Fire Safety Order, certainly for common parts and often for the units themselves depending on the arrangement. Operators who have converted flats or offices to short lets frequently assume domestic rules apply, and that assumption is usually wrong.