Fire Door Repairs in London
Failed a Regulation 10 inspection? Got an FRA action list sitting on your desk? Or just noticed a flat entrance door that won't close on its own anymore? We supply and fit fire door repairs across London, East London, North London and South East London — survey-first, with a fixed quote agreed before anyone touches a tool.
- Survey-first fixed quotes
- Intumescent strip and cold smoke seal replacement
- Photographic defect reports supplied
- Failed inspection remedial repairs
- Same-day visits, seven days a week
Inspection reports, installation records and compliance documentation are supplied as applicable to the work completed. Serving London, East London, North London, South East London, South West London and surrounding areas.
Accredited member of NAPFIS — The Home of Passive Fire Control
Fire Door Repairs — at a glance
A fire door has one job: to hold back fire and smoke long enough for people to get out and for the fire to stay contained where it started. FD30 doors are tested to resist fire for 30 minutes, FD60 for 60.
- Areas covered
- London, East London, North London, South East London
- Common work
- Intumescent Strip Replacement, Failed Inspection Remedial Repairs, Door Closer Repair and Replacement, Cold Smoke Seal Replacement
- Same-day service
- Yes
- Quote before work
- Yes — fixed price, no obligation
Quick answer
Most jobs land on our desk for one of a few reasons: intumescent strips that have perished or been painted over, gaps at the head and jambs that have opened past what the doorset's test evidence allows, a closer that's stopped pulling the door shut, or hinges that have dropped and taken the whole leaf out of alignment. We fix the fault, not just the symptom - new seals, realigned frames, replacement ironmongery, whatever the inspection actually calls for - and leave you with records for the file. If a door's flagged as a defect, don't sit on it.
Getting Fire Door Repairs Right in London
Fire door repairs in London usually get called in too late, not too early. People wait until a door's dragging on the floor or the closer's given up entirely, when the truth is most of these faults were visible months before anyone picked up the phone.
Here's what we actually see. A timber door in a post-war council block in East London that's dropped on its hinges and won't sit flush anymore. A composite door in a newer South East London development where the leaf's fine but the hardware fitted to it isn't rated for the job. A conversion flat in North London with a front door that was never a fire door to begin with - common in Victorian and Edwardian stock that's been split into flats over the decades. Different buildings, different causes, same result: a door that won't do what it's meant to if there's smoke or fire on the other side of it.
The gap round the edge matters more than people think. Too tight and the door binds and won't shut properly. Too loose and smoke gets past it before the door's even doing its job. And a closer that's the wrong closer power size for the door's weight is one of the most common reasons a heavy fire door just won't pull itself shut anymore.
We don't patch things to get through an inspection. We fix what's actually wrong, so it stays fixed. Get us out, we'll tell you straight whether it's a repair or a replacement job - and you'll get a written record of what was done, not a guess. Check our London fire door services for the full picture of what we cover. A door that fails quietly is still a door that's failed.
Fire Door Repairs in London: Doing the Job Properly
There's a difference between patching a fire door and repairing one properly, and it's not a small one. A patch might get a door past a quick glance - a bit of intumescent strip pushed back into place, a closer arm tightened, a smear of paint over a gap. A proper repair looks at the whole doorset - leaf, frame, hinges, hardware, seals - and brings it back to something that'll actually hold smoke and flame where it needs to for the time it's rated for. One of those things gets flagged again at the next inspection. The other doesn't.
Most of the work we do falls into a handful of recurring problems. Intumescent strip replacement is probably the single most common job - strips get painted over, go brittle, or vanish entirely on doors that have been in place since the 90s, and a door without an intact strip isn't doing its job however solid the timber looks. Cold smoke seal replacement usually goes hand in hand with it. After that it's door closer repair and replacement, hinge replacement and realignment where a leaf has dropped and started dragging on the frame, and excessive gap remediation - lipping to close a gap that's too wide, frame packing where the frame itself has moved out of square. We also deal with damaged door leaf repair after vandalism, lock and latch repair, latch keep alignment on doors that won't self-close reliably, and frame repair where the timber's split or the fixings have failed.
You'll see all of this across the borough stock - original timber FD30 doors in post-war council blocks in East London with failed strips and knackered closers, non-rated flat entrance doors in Victorian conversions across North London that were never fire doors to begin with, composite doors in newer South East London developments let down by the wrong ironmongery. A survey identifies which of these apply to your door - that's where fire door repair or replacement gets decided, not guessed at.
We survey first, quote in writing, then carry out the repair - using correct intumescent strip sizes matched to the doorset's test evidence, not whatever's on the van. Our installers are individually NAPFIS-accredited, with certification kept on file for completed works and remedial sign-off where applicable. A fire door not closing properly, a warped leaf, a gap that's clearly too big - none of it gets better on its own.
How London Fire Door Repairs Work
Most jobs start the same way - someone's had a fire risk assessment done, or a Regulation 10 check, and it's flagged a list of defects. Failed intumescent strips. A closer that's not pulling the door shut. A gap round the frame you could post a magazine through. That list is where we start.
First thing on site is checking what's actually wrong versus what's on the paperwork - they don't always match. A door might be logged as "gap issue" when actually the frame's dropped and twisted, which is a different repair altogether. So we go leaf by leaf: hinges, seals, closer, ironmongery, the frame itself, and the gaps all the way round including the threshold. Intumescent strip replacement is one of the most common jobs we do - the strip swells shut in a fire to seal the gap, and once it's damaged, painted over, or missing sections, that door isn't doing what it's meant to. Same with cold smoke seal replacement - a door can be structurally fine and still fail if the smoke seal's perished or been cut away for a lock change.
Gaps get measured against the doorset's own test evidence rather than a blanket figure - typically somewhere around 3-4mm at the head and jambs, tighter or wider depending on what the door was actually certified to. Where a gap's too big, we're either fitting lipping to the edge or packing the frame to bring it back square - frame packing corrects a lot of the twisted-frame issues we see in older post-war blocks where the building's moved over the decades. Hinge jigs let us cut clean recesses for replacement CE-marked hinges without chewing up the door core, which matters more than people think - a dodgy hinge repair can do more damage to a fire door's rating than the original fault.
We also deal with the stuff that's easy to miss on a quick look: dropped hinges throwing the whole door out of alignment, latch keeps that don't line up any more, letterbox cut-outs that were never fire-rated in the first place. Repairs often mean swapping out old ironmongery for a proper fire door letterplate and compliant hardware to match. Damaged leafs, cracked fire glass, vandalism damage in communal blocks across East London and South East London - all remedial work, not automatic replacement. Once it's done, you get photo evidence and a written record of what was repaired, so the next inspection has something to check against instead of starting from scratch.
Recognise the problem?
If one of these sounds like your situation, start there — each walks through the likely causes, how urgent it is, and the fix.
Get Your Fire Doors Repaired Properly
If your last check flagged failed strips, dropped hinges or gaps out of tolerance, don't sit on it - defects like these get worse and they're what get buildings pulled up in a fire risk assessment. Whether it's a housing block in West London or a converted terrace in the East, request a survey and a written quote so you know exactly what's wrong and what it'll cost to put right. Phone lines are answered 24/7, so you can get things moving whenever you're ready.
Fix Fire Door London: Common Questions Answered
Our fire risk assessment flagged our fire doors as non-compliant — what do we do now?
Don't just tick a box and move on. The sensible next step is a proper door-by-door survey - not a walk-past, an actual inspection that checks leaf condition, gaps, hinges, seals and hardware against BS 8214. That gives you a defect schedule ranking each door by severity, so you know which ones need urgent attention and which can wait a few weeks. From there it's a remedial works schedule - repair where the doorset allows it, replace where it doesn't - with a photo evidence report at the end so whoever's asking (managing agent, fire risk assessor, insurer) has something concrete to look at. That paper trail is what actually clears an FRA defect, not a verbal "we've sorted it."
Can a damaged fire door be repaired or does it have to be replaced?
Depends what's damaged. A lot of what we find - failed intumescent strips, perished cold smoke seals, a knackered closer, a dropped hinge, minor edge lipping damage - is repairable without touching the leaf itself, and that's the bulk of our fire door repair service across Greater London. Where it tips into replacement is when the core's been compromised - water damage, fire exposure, splitting through the leaf, or so much drilling for hardware over the years that the door's structural integrity is gone. Painting over intumescent strips is another one we see constantly, and it usually means the seal has to come out and be replaced properly rather than scraped and reused. Get it looked at before you assume the worst - or the best.
There's a big gap around my fire door — is that a problem?
Yes, and it's one of the most common fire door defects we come across. A gap that's too wide at the head or jambs stops the intumescent seal doing its job in a fire, and at the threshold it can leave a smoke leakage path that defeats the whole point of the door. Excessive gap remediation is often just frame repair and realignment, or a dropped hinge and door realignment job - cheaper and quicker than most people expect, and it doesn't always mean a new door.
My fire door won't close by itself anymore — can it be fixed?
Usually, yes. A fire door not closing properly is almost always a worn or badly adjusted closer, a binding hinge, or a leaf that's dropped slightly on its frame. Closer repair or replacement, hinge realignment, latch keep alignment - these are straightforward jobs, not a reason to rip the door out. Left ignored, it's exactly the kind of thing that shows up on the next check. Once it's sorted, a fire door maintenance contract keeps it that way between inspections.
Get Your Fire Doors Sorted
Whether it's a dropped hinge in a Croydon conversion, a failed cold smoke seal in a Tower Hamlets block, or a stack of remedial repairs from a defect list, the next step's the same. Ask for a written quote covering the actual repairs needed - leaf, ironmongery, seals, frame - before any work starts.