Fire Door Installers London

Certified Fire Door Installers London

In a flat or any shared building in London, a timber door isn't allowed unless it carries a certified fire rating — and that rating only counts if the door is built properly in the first place. That's where we come in. Every fire door we make is built from solid, high-density timber, never a hollow blank with a veneer skinned over it. The difference is obvious the moment you lift one: a proper fire door is heavy, which is exactly why the frame matters as much as the door itself. A tired old frame won't hold that weight for long, so depending on what we find on site we'll either reinforce what's there or build you a new one from scratch. Either way, the finished door meets current UK building regulations.

What Every Fire Door Includes

Requirements for Fire Door Installers London

The clever bit is the intumescent seal, routed discreetly into the door edge so you'd never notice it day to day. Once the room climbs past about 200°C, that seal reacts and swells up fast, filling the gap between door and frame to choke off the smoke. And smoke is the real danger here — it's what overwhelms people long before the flames ever reach them. Buy a household a few extra minutes to get out, and you've done exactly what a fire door is there to do.

Hinges matter more than people expect. We use Grade 13 stainless steel, three to a door, because the cheap brass ones you'd find on an ordinary internal door warp and let go in a serious fire — and a door hanging off its hinges is no barrier at all. Every fire door also gets an overhead closer, since one propped open with a doorstop is, frankly, useless. We set the closer tension by hand on site so the door pulls itself shut firmly, but not so hard it slams.

Then there's the gap around the frame, which is fussier than it sounds. Building control want it between 3mm and 4mm, and they mean it. Go over 4mm and smoke slips past before the seal has time to swell; come in under 3mm and the door binds and sticks the first damp week of autumn. Getting that gap consistent on an old London property that's nowhere near square is most of the skill in the job — and it's why our installs pass council inspection first time.

Legal guidelines for landlords and homeowners

If you let out an HMO, fire doors aren't optional — they're a legal requirement, and the penalties for getting caught without them are steep. The same goes for the door between an integral garage and the hallway in an ordinary house, which catches a lot of homeowners out. Our fire doors are FD60-rated and built from solid timber, holding back fire for a full hour. That's the spec building control will want to see in most London layouts — a solid door of around 54mm, not a thin commercial blank.

The worry we hear most often is that going compliant means bolting an ugly flat commercial slab into a beautiful Victorian hallway. It doesn't. Nothing says a fire door has to look like one. We make ours to suit the house — proper four-panel and six-panel designs in solid timber, with the mouldings and beading matched to your originals — so it reads as part of an Edwardian or Victorian home rather than an afterthought stuck on for the inspector.

We finish every door back at the workshop before it ever reaches site — primer plus several coats of microporous paint, which lets the timber breathe and keeps moisture out. We steer clear of standard gloss on purpose; the wrong paint can foul the intumescent seal, and that's not a corner worth cutting. Fitting then takes the best part of a day per door: hanging it true, checking the drop, dialling in those gaps. What you're left with is a door that looks like it has always belonged in the house but performs to modern safety standards — handed over with full FENSA certification and the compliance paperwork you'll need at inspection.

The Golden Ratio Standard

Every fire door we build is constructed from solid, high-density timber cores — never hollow blanks or cheap veneers. We route in certified intumescent seals, fit Grade 13 stainless steel ironmongery, and hand over full FENSA certification and compliance documentation so your property passes inspection first time.