A fire door inspection across a building of any size rarely comes back clean. Most produce a list of defects, sometimes a long one, and that is where the real work begins. The question is not just what is wrong, but what to fix first when budgets and contractor time are finite.
Treating every defect as equally urgent wastes money and, worse, can delay the repairs that actually reduce risk. This guide runs through the faults inspections find most often, then sets out a simple, risk-based way to triage them so that the doors posing the greatest risk are dealt with first.
A fire door's job is to hold back fire and smoke for its rated period so people can escape and the fire stays contained. Some defects stop a door doing that job today. Others reduce its margin of safety but leave it broadly functional. Sensible prioritisation lines remedial work up against that distinction rather than against the order defects happen to appear on a report.
It also keeps you honest with limited resources. If you have a hundred doors and a fixed budget, the goal is to retire the most serious risks fastest, not to spread effort evenly across every minor cosmetic note.
These are the faults that come up again and again:
The most useful question to ask of any defect is simple: does this stop the door performing its fire and smoke function right now? A door that will not latch, a missing closer, a large perimeter gap or seals that are gone entirely all answer yes. Those are the doors that, in a fire tonight, would not do their job.
A second tier reduces performance or margin without disabling the door: a single loose hinge screw where the others hold, light surface damage, or a seal section that is worn but present. A third tier is administrative or cosmetic, such as missing signage on a door that otherwise performs, which still needs fixing but does not leave a compartment open.
Two cross-cutting factors raise the priority of any defect: where the door is, and who relies on it. A faulty door on a primary escape route, a stairwell, or a flat entrance in a residential block carries more risk than the same fault on a low-traffic store cupboard.
A practical scheme uses three bands:
The bands are a guide, not a substitute for judgement. A "high" defect on a critical escape route may warrant being treated as critical. Document the reasoning either way.
Some doors accumulate enough damage, or carry alterations significant enough, that repair is no longer credible and replacement is the right call. Our guide on whether to repair or replace a fire door walks through how to make that decision defensibly.
A triage is only useful if the resulting actions are tracked to completion. Each defect should be logged against the specific door, given a priority, assigned, and followed through until it is verified as fixed, ideally with before-and-after evidence. That record is also what demonstrates you acted reasonably, which counts for a lot if an inspection ever leads to questions. Our articles on the consequences of failing an inspection and keeping a fire door register cover why the paper trail is as important as the repair itself.
DoorTRACE captures every defect against the exact door it belongs to, lets you set a priority, and tracks it through to verified completion with photographic evidence at each stage. The defect workflow gives you a live picture of what is outstanding and how urgent it is, so remedial spend goes to the highest risks first. To see it on your own portfolio, see the platform or get in touch.
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Kemble Nagan's article on what BS 8214:2026 changes on the ground has been published in Fire Door Journal, in print and online.
The checklist that powers every DoorTRACE inspection is now a free, printable A4 PDF for anyone to download and use. No email address, no sign-up, no catch.