Firestopping records: what to capture at every seal

At every seal, before you move on, record where it is, what passes through it, the tested detail you followed, the materials that went in, the gap you sealed, before and after photos, and who did it and when. Most seals stay reachable, but once other trades move in, getting back to one costs a visit, and some end up covered. Take the record at the seal, on the day, not from memory at the end of the week.

Why the record matters once you've moved on

Most firestopping isn't boarded over. Once you've moved on, getting back to a seal means tiles out of a grid ceiling, a ladder or a lift, ductwork and cable tray in the way, and on a live hospital site a permit and an area cleared. Some of it does get covered: the fire-stopping around a fire door frame sits behind the architrave once the door is finished.

The Building Regulations are plain: requirement B3(3) says "A building shall be so designed and constructed that the unseen spread of fire and smoke within concealed spaces in its structure or fabric is inhibited where necessary." TGD B (2024) Volume 1, para 3.7.1, says that if a fire-separating element is to work, "every joint, or imperfection of fit, or opening to allow services to pass through the element, should be adequately protected."

The question is whether you can show it without going back. When the main contractor or the client's team asks, or it's needed for the handover documents at the end of the job, a photo buried in a WhatsApp group, with nothing to say which seal it shows, doesn't answer it. If you can't show the seal, you end up arguing about whether you get paid for it.

"By the time the ceiling grid goes in, nobody asks what you did. They ask for the photo."

What TGD B says about the seal itself

TGD B is guidance, and it is worded that way:

• Appendix B, para B1.1: for fire doors, "Attention is drawn to the importance of the junction between the structure and the doorframe and the need to provide fire-stopping to maintain required fire resistance." That's the seal that ends up behind the architrave.
• Para 3.7.5: openings for pipes, ducts, conduits or cables through an element that serves as a barrier to fire should be "kept as few in number as possible", "kept as small as practicable" and fire-stopped. Joints between those elements should be fire-stopped, "allowing for movement where appropriate".
• Para 3.7.5.2: proprietary sealing systems "which have been shown by test to maintain the fire resistance of the wall or other element are also acceptable". Generic materials, from mortar and gypsum plaster to mineral wool and intumescent mastics, are listed too, but "These may be used only in situations which are suitable for the particular fire-stopping materials." So the record should say what went in, not just that the hole is closed.
• Para 3.7.5.1: fire-stopping materials should be reinforced or supported "in all cases where the unsupported span is greater than 100 mm".
• Para 3.6.1: "Cavity barriers should not be confused with fire stopping"; fire-stopping "is used to close imperfections of fit." Keep them as separate items in your record.

TGD B's handover guidance (para 0.9) is written about active systems: alarms, emergency lighting, sprinklers, smoke control. In practice, the record of each seal comes down to whoever sealed it.

The checklist: what to capture at every seal

Before you move on from each seal:

1. Location. Floor, room or zone, and the wall or floor it passes through, with its fire rating. Pinned to the drawing.
2. What passes through. Pipe, duct, cable tray or conduit, with its material and size.
3. The tested detail. The system and the detail reference you followed from the manufacturer's evidence. If the service, substrate or gap isn't covered by a detail, flag it; don't improvise.
4. Materials used. Every product in the seal: mastic, sealant, batt, collar, wrap, pillow or sleeve, with the product name and the batch number off the tube or pack, and roughly how much went in. If something was swapped on the day, record what actually went in, not what the spec said.
5. The gap. Measure the gap around the service and the seal depth, and write down the numbers against what the detail allows.
6. Before photo. The open penetration, with a tape in shot.
7. After photo. The finished seal close up, plus one wider shot that shows where it is.
8. Who and when. The operative and the date, and anything that held the job up.
9. Labels, if the spec asks for them. Put the label number in the same record.
10. Anything that will be covered. Frame gaps before the architrave goes on, and anything that will end up behind services: photograph it first. You won't see it again.

When other trades come after you

Seals get breached after you leave: a new cable, a moved pipe, a hole for a sensor. If you can show the state of each seal on the day you handed over, with the date and the photo, a later breach is clearly someone else's. If you can't, it lands back on you.

"On the jobs we go back to, the seal we did is usually still fine. What isn't fine is the new cable someone pushed through beside it."

A record taken at the time also makes the next visit quicker: you start from each seal's last result instead of surveying the floor from scratch.

Where DoorInspec+ fits

This is the job DoorInspec+ was built for. In the firestopping register, crews record each seal on their phone, offline, pinned to the drawing: the tested detail, the materials used, the gap measured, and before and after photos taken in the record rather than from a camera roll. Submitted surveys are frozen, every change shows in a plain-English audit trail with who and when, and the training register shows what each operative held on the day of the work.

If a seal needs fixing, the operative picks the fix from your own job list and it arrives in the office priced from your rate card, photo attached, ready to turn into a quote in one step. Reports go out under your name and letterhead only, and estates teams can be given a live view of the record. The app records what your crew found; it never decides the outcome for a seal. Fire doors, walls and ceilings, and steel coatings have their own registers, plus quotes, invoices, planner and timesheets in the office.

This is general information, not legal advice. Check the Fire Safety Certificate, the specification and the manufacturer's tested details for your own job.