On hospital fire door surveys the same four faults turn up again and again: gaps around the door, damage from beds and trolleys, closers that no longer shut the door, and intumescent strips or smoke seals that are missing. None of them is hard to spot. The hard part is recording each one so it gets fixed, and so you can show later that it was.
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Why hospital doors take such a beating
A corridor door in a hospital is opened all day, by people pushing beds, trolleys, wheelchairs and cleaning carts. Doors get wedged, kicked, held, rehung and painted. A door that was right at handover can be well off a couple of years later, and nobody did anything wrong to cause it. That is why the faults below are worth checking on every door, not only the ones that look bad.
The stakes are also higher here than in most buildings. Hospitals and nursing homes are full of people who can't get themselves out: patients in bed, on drips, or who need staff to move them. Getting them away from a fire takes time, and the fire doors, seals and fire-rated walls are what buy that time. They have to work the way they were designed to.
It also helps to remember what a fire door is. Technical Guidance Document B describes it as a complete door assembly: the leaf, the frame, the ironmongery (hinges, latches, closers) and any seals. Its performance "critically depends on the correct installation of the complete door assembly, strictly in accordance with the terms of the relevant test certification supplied by the door manufacturer" (TGD B 2024, Volume 1, Appendix B, para B1.1). Lose one part and the assembly is no longer the one that was tested. Our short video on the parts of a fire door walks through them.
1. Gaps around the door
This is the one we see most. The leading edge and the head open up as hinges wear, the leaf drops, or the frame takes a knock. The threshold gap grows when floor finishes change.
Don't judge it by eye and don't work from a figure you half remember. The acceptable gap for that door comes from its own test evidence or the manufacturer's data. Measure at set points on every door, write the reading down, and photograph the gauge in the gap.
"On corridor doors the leading edge is nearly always the first to go. The hinge side holds up a lot longer."
2. Bed and trolley damage
Look at the leaf edges, the faces at bed height, the frame, the stops and the glazing beads. A split stop or a frame knocked loose can open a path for smoke and fire even when the leaf itself looks fine. TGD B also draws attention to the junction between the structure and the doorframe and the need for firestopping there (Appendix B, para B1.1), so check behind a damaged architrave, not just in front of it.
3. Worn-out and badly set closers
TGD B says all fire doors "should be fitted with an automatic self-closing device (tested to I.S. EN1154) which is capable of closing the door from any angle and against any latch fitted to the door" (Appendix B, para B3.1). So the test on site is simple: open the door fully, let it go, and watch whether it closes and latches. Then try it from a small angle. A closer that only gets the door most of the way is a fault.
Where doors are held open on hold-open devices, check that the door releases and then actually closes and latches. B3.3 lists where hold-open and release devices may be used.
Setting a closer is harder than it looks. A closer adjusted to shut the door today may not shut it tomorrow, because the air pressure around the door changes. Someone closes a window in the next room, or a door that normally sits on a hold-open device is shut, and a closer that was just managing no longer pulls the door onto the latch. Allow for that when you adjust closers, check the door in the conditions it will actually be used in, and where it still won't close reliably, a stronger closer may need to be specified, within what the door's test evidence allows.
"A door can close perfectly the day you set it, then sit off the latch the day someone shuts the window next door."
4. Missing intumescent strips and smoke seals
Strips get painted over, pulled out, or left off when a door is rehung. Where the door needs to restrict smoke, TGD B uses the Sa classification (Appendix B, para B1.1), and seals are part of the complete assembly. Check the full run of the strip on the frame or leaf edge, not just one spot. Paint is the other problem: when a painter gets paint on brush smoke seals, the bristles go hard and the seal stops doing its job. Check the seals after any painting.
"Strips go missing most after a door's been rehung or painted."
What to record on every door
- Door reference and where it is on the drawing
- Label present (TGD B lists what it should give: manufacturer, product, a unique reference and the classification, Appendix B, para B7.1)
- Fire door sign in place (Appendix B, para B6.1)
- Gaps measured at set points, with the readings written down
- Damage to leaf, frame, stops and glazing beads, with a photo of each
- Closer: does the door close and latch from fully open and from a small angle
- Strips and smoke seals present, intact and free of paint along the full run
- Hinges and hardware secure
- The fix you'd propose for each fault
- Who surveyed it, and when
Record what you found. Whether the door is acceptable is a judgement for the competent person on the job, made against the door's own evidence.
Who has to keep on top of it
The Building Regulations don't deal with how a building is managed once it's in use. TGD B says its guidance "has been based on the assumption that buildings and systems will be maintained adequately" (Volume 1, para 0.4). The ongoing duty sits under the Fire Services Act 1981. Section 18(2), as substituted in 2003, makes it the duty of every person having control over premises the section applies to to "take all reasonable measures to guard against the outbreak of fire on such premises" and to ensure the fire safety measures and procedures "are applied at all times". There is no fixed fire door inspection interval in Irish law. A survey record is how an estates team shows it is meeting that duty.
This is general information, not legal advice. Check the current documents for your own job.
Where DoorInspec+ fits
DoorInspec+ is built for this survey. Your crew records each door on their phone, offline, pinned to the drawing: gaps measured on a drawing of the door, each fault photographed, the fix picked from your own job list and priced from your rate card. The next survey starts from each door's last result, and the report goes out on your own letterhead.