Fire Door Inspection Checklist
A fire door inspection checklist template built around measurement rather than opinion. Section 3 is a table of gap readings for a reason: a fire door is a tested assembly, and the things that stop it performing are dimensions and materials, every one of which can be checked with a gauge.
- Thirty-four checks per door, plus five measured gaps around the leaf
- Intumescent strips checked for paint, which removes them without removing them
- The closing arc tested to the latch, not to the point it looks shut
- Escape route failures reported separately from the pass rate
Fire Door Inspection Checklist
One building, door by door
| # | Leaf, frame and seal check | Pass | Fail | N/A |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Certification label, plug or marking present and legible | |||
| 2 | Intumescent strips continuous, undamaged, not painted over | |||
| 3 | Door closes fully and latches from any open angle, including 5 degrees |
The document you will get. Download for the full, editable file.
Who this fire door inspection checklist is for
Four people rely on this record, and three of them will only ever see the number at the bottom.
The inspector, with a gauge
Sections 3 and 5 are the ones that need equipment and method rather than judgment. The gap table and the closing arc are both things you measure and record, and both are things that a careful look will get wrong.
The responsible person for fire safety
Your number is not the pass rate, it is the count of failures on escape routes underneath it. That is the figure that describes whether the building’s escape strategy currently holds, and it is the one a single percentage is designed to average away.
Facilities or estates managing the fabric
Section 6 is yours, because most of what fails here was done by somebody with good intentions. A decorator painting a frame, a contractor drilling a leaf for a cable, a trolley route chewing the bottom of a door.
Whoever keeps propping it open
You are not the problem and the sheet says so. A door propped every day has a reason, usually airflow, access or a closer adjusted too heavy for the people using it, and the check asks for that to be investigated rather than re-signed.
Which section matters the most in your sector
A fire door is assessed the same way wherever it hangs. What changes is how hard it gets used, who alters it, and how much of the escape strategy depends on it holding.
- FM service providers
The register itself. Across a managed portfolio, doors get replaced, re-hung and altered by contractors nobody briefed, and a register that cannot be tied to a physical door ID proves nothing about any particular door.
FM service provider software - Healthcare
The closing arc in section 5. Hospital doors are held open by beds and trolleys dozens of times a day, closers get adjusted lighter so staff can move through, and the last few degrees are the first thing to go.
Healthcare maintenance software - Education
Section 6. Student residential and teaching buildings generate persistent wedging, and the check asks for repeated propping to be investigated rather than met with another sign nobody reads.
Campus maintenance software - Commercial real estate
The leaf checks. Tenant fit-outs drill doors for cabling, signage and access control, and an aperture that was not formed and certified turns a rated leaf into an ordinary one with a hole in it.
Portfolio maintenance software - Retail and malls
Storage in the swing, in section 6. Back of house doors are the ones with stock against them, and a door that cannot swing is a door that has been removed from the strategy without anybody deciding to.
Retail maintenance software - Corporate facilities
Hold-open devices. Offices run a lot of doors on magnetic holders tied to the alarm, and the line that matters is whether they actually release on test rather than whether they are fitted.
Corporate facilities software
What a fire door inspection checklist should contain
A fire door inspection checklist is a door by door record of whether each fire door still performs as the tested assembly it was certified as. It measures the gaps around the leaf, checks the certification, seals, glazing and ironmongery, tests the closing arc to the latch, and records how the door is used.
A. Fields specific to a fire door inspection checklist
| Field | What goes in it | Why it earns its place |
|---|---|---|
| Inspected by, name and competence | A name, with the qualification behind it | First because it is the field most often left thin. Fire door inspection is a trained activity, and an inspection carried out by somebody without that training is a record that will not survive scrutiny afterwards. |
| Door ID, labeled physically | A register ID that is also on the door itself | The register and the building have to be connected in a way somebody can verify. An inspection record that cannot be tied to a specific door proves nothing about that door, and doors look very much alike. |
| Gap at the top | Measured, in millimeters | Separated from the other gaps because it is the one nobody checks. It is above eye level, it needs the door closed to measure, and it is where a dropped or sagging leaf shows up first. |
| Gap at the hinge side and leading edge | Measured, both sides, roughly 3 mm each | Two readings rather than one impression. A leaf that has dropped is tight on one side and open on the other, and an average of the two would describe a door that is fine when neither edge is. |
| Gap at the meeting stile | Measured, on double doors | The gap between two leaves, which is the one that opens up as closers fall out of sequence. It is also the only gap where both halves are moving, so it drifts faster than the rest. |
| Threshold gap | Measured, with a smoke seal where required | The gap that gets changed by somebody else’s work. New flooring, a replacement carpet or a raised finish alters the threshold without anybody thinking of it as a fire door alteration. |
| Certification label, plug or marking | Present, and still legible | A door with no readable certification is a door whose rating is an assumption. It may well be a fire door; the point is that nothing on it says so, and nothing in the record can say so either. |
| Intumescent strips | Continuous, undamaged, and not painted over | The check that catches the invisible failure. Paint on a strip reduces or removes its ability to expand and seal the gap, and the door afterwards looks newer and better maintained than it did before. |
| Hinge screws | Correct number, fire rated, none substituted | A small thing holding up a heavy thing in a fire. Shorter or non-rated screws get fitted during adjustments and repairs, and the hinge continues to work perfectly under every condition except the one that matters. |
| Closing from 5 degrees | Closes fully and latches from any open angle | The single most useful test on the sheet. Closers lose their power at the end of the arc first, so a door released from wide open will slam shut convincingly and the same door released from nearly closed will stop short. |
| Hold-open devices releasing on test | Linked to the alarm, and actually releasing | Fitted is not the same as working. A magnetic holder that does not drop on an alarm signal is a door permanently open in exactly the circumstance the door exists for. |
| Doors on escape routes among the failures | A count, kept apart from the pass rate | The number that makes the rest of the report readable. Averaging a failed store cupboard door together with a failed door onto a protected stair produces a percentage that describes neither. |
If you cut this down, keep the gap table and the escape route count. They are the two parts of this document that cannot be reconstructed from anything else. Every narrative observation on the sheet can be re-made by the next competent person who walks past the door; a reading cannot, and the whole value of a gap measurement is that it exists as a number somebody recorded on a date, so a door that was at 4 mm last year and is at 6 mm now is a door that has moved rather than a door somebody feels differently about. That is also why the gaps are five separate readings instead of one judgment: a leaf that has dropped is simultaneously too tight in one place and too open in another, and no single figure describes it. The escape route count does the same job for the report as a whole. A pass rate is an average across doors that are not comparable, and the only version of it that tells the responsible person anything is the one that says how many of the failures sit on the route people would actually use to get out.
B. What it looks like filled in
One building, eighty-four doors, by area. The last two columns are the ones that change the answer.
| Area | Doors | Failed | On an escape route | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ground floor | 22 | 4 | 3 | 73% |
| First floor | 20 | 2 | 0 | 80% |
| Second floor | 21 | 3 | 1 | 76% |
| Basement | 21 | 6 | 0 | 62% |
| Building | 84 | 15 | 4 | 73% |
Read the pass rate column and the basement is the problem. Read the one beside it and the basement is fine. Of the fifteen failures in this building, four are on escape routes and three of those are on the ground floor, where the doors between the corridor and the protected stair were not latching from a shallow angle. The basement’s six failures are store rooms and a plant room, which matter and are not urgent. Ranked by pass rate the building says fix the basement first, at 62 percent against the ground floor’s 73. Ranked by what the escape strategy depends on it says the opposite, and the gap between those two readings is the reason the escape route count sits on the summary rather than inside the defect list.
Word to adapt the checks and the wording to your own building and scope, Excel for the door register, the gap measurement table and the Inspection Log tab that trends pass rates and repeat failures, PDF for the copy that goes round with the gauge. Free, and yours to rebrand.
How do you inspect a fire door?
One building, door by door, with a gauge in your hand. Start from the register rather than from the first door you come to, because a door you cannot identify is a door you cannot record. Six steps.
Set the scope, and record who is doing the inspecting
Building and address, the areas and floors covered, how many fire doors are on the register, and whether this is all doors, a sample, or communal and escape routes only. Then the frequency in force and what set it, the responsible person for fire safety, the fire risk assessment date with whatever it already said about doors, and the inspector’s name and competence.
Build the register, and label every door
Door ID, location, rating, type, certification and the date it was last checked, with a status against each one of Pass, Minor defect or Fail. Label each door physically with the same ID, because an inspection record that cannot be tied to a specific door is a record about the building in general rather than about any door in it.
Measure five gaps on every leaf
Top, hinge side, leading edge, meeting stile on double doors, and the threshold. Around the leaf the gap should be roughly 3 mm, give or take a millimeter, and 5 mm or more lets smoke through long before fire is the issue. Measure them with a gauge rather than estimating, record each reading, and mark whether the door is within tolerance.
Work the leaf, the frame and the seals
Twelve checks. Certification present and legible, leaf undamaged and not cut down or drilled, apertures correctly formed and certified, glazing of the right type and intumescent glazed, frame secure and not packed with combustible material, the gap behind the frame fire stopped, architraves and mastic intact, intumescent strips continuous and not painted over, cold smoke seals in contact and not worn, and the threshold gap sealed where required.
Test the ironmongery, and close the door from five degrees
Twelve checks covering hinges of the correct number and rating with every screw present and none substituted, the closer fitted, adjusted and not leaking, latching from any open angle including a shallow one, closing speed adequate against the door furniture, the latch engaging fully into a correctly aligned keep, panic hardware operating and rated, hold-open devices releasing on test, nothing propping the door, and signage correct on both faces.
Look at how the doors are actually used, then separate the failures
Ten checks on wedging, storage in the swing, the escape route beyond the door, floor finishes holding doors open, whether repeated propping gets investigated rather than re-signed, the reporting route for damage, contractor briefing, and recent building works. Then the result: pass rate, doors wedged, gaps beyond tolerance, painted or missing strips, doors not latching, and separately, how many of the failures are on escape routes.
Measuring the gaps versus looking at the door
Most fire door inspections are done by looking, and looking is genuinely good at some of this. The problem is that it is reliably bad at exactly the failures that matter.
| Aspect | Measuring with a gauge | Looking at the door |
|---|---|---|
| What it catches | A 6 mm gap that looks like every other gap | Obvious damage, missing seals, visible holes |
| What it produces | A reading, on a date, that can be compared | An impression that cannot be compared to anything |
| How a slow failure shows | As a number that has moved since last time | Not at all, until it has gone a long way |
| Where it is weakest | It takes longer and needs equipment | Gaps, closing arcs and painted strips |
| What it needs | A gauge, and the discipline to use it | Experience, and good light |
| What it leaves behind | Evidence that survives being questioned | A tick that rests on somebody’s judgment |
The three failures that most often turn a certified door into an opening are all invisible to a careful look. A gap of 6 mm around a leaf is indistinguishable from a gap of 3 mm at arm’s length, and the door closes, latches and looks entirely correct at both. A painted intumescent strip is not only invisible as a defect, it reads as the opposite: the frame has been freshly decorated and the door looks better cared for than its neighbors. A closer that has lost the last few degrees of its arc will slam the door convincingly from wide open, which is exactly how anybody testing it by hand will test it, and the same door released from nearly closed stops 50 mm short and stays there. None of these produce damage, none of them produce noise, and none of them are the kind of thing an inspector feels uncertain about and goes back to check. That is the entire argument for a gauge, a specific test from a shallow angle, and a line on the sheet asking about paint. It is also why the readings are written down rather than converted straight into a pass or a fail, because the value of 4 mm is not that it passes, it is that next year somebody can see it has become 6.
When the template starts to feel limiting
One inspection of one building fits on a spreadsheet. A portfolio, re-inspected on a cycle, with failures that have to be fixed and re-checked, is where it stops.
Readings never become a trend
A gap of 4 mm recorded this year and 6 mm next year is a door that has moved. Seeing it means opening two spreadsheets and matching a door ID by hand, which is work that only happens after something has already gone wrong.
Urgent failures have no clock on them
A door on an escape route that does not latch is marked Urgent and given a date. Nothing in a spreadsheet knows whether that date passed, and the next inspection is the next time anybody finds out.
The register drifts from the building
Doors get replaced, re-hung, added in a fit-out and removed in a refurbishment. The count of doors on the register but not found is a symptom of a register that is describing a building that has changed since.
Repeat failures look like new ones
The same door failing on the same defect at three consecutive inspections is a procurement or a usage problem rather than a maintenance one, and it reads as three separate rows in three separate files.
What running this in Facilio looks like
The template is the paper version of this inspection. The checks and the measurements do not change; what changes is that every door is a record carrying its own readings, an urgent escape route failure becomes an action with a clock, re-inspection after a repair is something the system expects, and repeat failures stop looking like first-time ones.
Audit Report Intelligence
Gap readings read as a line, not a cell
Because each measurement is held against the door rather than retyped into a new sheet, a leaf that has moved from 4 mm to 6 mm over two inspections is visible as a trend at the point of the second one rather than after somebody compares spreadsheets.
Reactive Maintenance Agent
An escape route failure is a state on the building
A door on a protected route that will not latch becomes an open condition against that location with its priority attached, so it is visible to the responsible person rather than sitting inside a defect list as one row among fifteen.
Work Completion Validator
A repair is not finished until the door is re-checked
Closing a fire door defect requires the re-inspection rather than the repair visit, so a door cannot return to a passing status on the strength of somebody having attended it.
Asset Intelligence
The label on the door is the record
Scanning the ID on the door opens its own history of readings, defects and repairs, which is what connects a register entry to the physical door in a way that survives a refurbishment renumbering half a floor.
Hallucination-free by design. Atom AI answers from the records in your tenant rather than generating plausible text, so an empty field reads as empty rather than filled in for you.
Frequently asked questions
What should a fire door inspection checklist include?
A register with an ID per door, a table of measured gaps around each leaf, then checks on the leaf, frame and seals, on the ironmongery and closing, and on how the doors are used day to day. It closes with a status count, a pass rate, and separately a count of failures on escape routes.
The gap table is what distinguishes a fire door inspection from a general door check. The other sections confirm that the assembly is complete and intact; the measurements are what confirm it still performs.
What gap should there be around a fire door?
Roughly 3 mm around the leaf, give or take a millimeter, measured at the top, the hinge side, the leading edge and the meeting stile on double doors. The threshold is assessed separately and may have a smoke seal depending on the door.
A gap of 5 mm or more is the point at which smoke passes freely, and smoke is what the door is holding back long before fire reaches it. The reason the template asks for five readings rather than one is that a dropped leaf is too tight on one side and too open on the other at the same time.
Why do intumescent strips need checking for paint?
Because paint reduces or removes the strip’s ability to expand and seal the gap, and it does so with nothing visible to show for it. The strip is still present, still continuous, still the right product, and no longer doing the job it was fitted for.
It is the failure most likely to be introduced by somebody trying to improve the building. A decorator paints a frame, the strip gets painted with it, and the door comes out of the process looking considerably better maintained than it went in.
How should the closer be tested?
By releasing the door from a shallow angle, around five degrees, and watching whether it closes fully and latches. Testing from wide open is the natural thing to do and it is the test the door is most likely to pass.
Closers lose their power at the end of the arc first. A door that stops 50 mm short of the frame looks closed to everybody walking past and is fully open as far as smoke is concerned, which is why the last few degrees get their own line rather than being covered by a general check that the door closes.
Why report escape route failures separately?
Because a failed store cupboard door and a failed door between a corridor and a protected stair are not the same finding, and a single pass rate averages them into a number that describes neither.
The practical effect shows up in prioritization. A building ranked by pass rate will often send the first repair visit to the area with the most failures, when the doors the escape strategy actually depends on are somewhere else with a better percentage.
Who is allowed to inspect fire doors?
Somebody competent, and the template asks for the name and the qualification behind it in the first section. Fire door inspection is a trained activity in most jurisdictions, and the training is what makes the difference between finding these defects and walking past them.
The field exists because the record has to survive being questioned after an incident. An inspection carried out by somebody without that competence produces a document that looks like evidence and does not function as it.
What should I do about a door that is propped open every day?
Find out why, rather than putting up another sign. The checklist asks for repeated propping to be investigated specifically, because a door that gets wedged daily is solving a problem for the people using it.
It is usually airflow, access with trolleys or a closer adjusted too heavy for the people going through it. All three of those have fixes, and none of them is addressed by a notice explaining that a wedged fire door is not a fire door, which the people wedging it generally already know.
Can I edit and rebrand this template?
Yes. It is free to use, edit, rename and put your own logo on, internally or for clients. No attribution required.
The Word version is the one to edit if your scope or door types differ from the checks as written. The Excel version is the one to use if you want the gap measurement table, the status counts and the Inspection Log tab, which is where repeat failures on the same door become visible.
In one paragraph
A fire door inspection is a measurement exercise that most people carry out by looking. Start from a register with a physical ID on every door, because doors look alike and a record that cannot be tied to one proves nothing. Measure five gaps around each leaf with a gauge rather than estimating them, since roughly 3 mm is the target and 5 mm or more passes smoke long before fire is the issue. Check whether the intumescent strips have been painted, which removes their function while improving their appearance. Test the closing arc from about five degrees rather than from wide open, because that is the end of the travel where closers give up. Then separate the failures on escape routes from the overall pass rate, because those two numbers routinely point in opposite directions.
The template is the floor, not the ceiling
Take the checklist; it will run a proper door by door inspection and leave readings somebody can question. When a spreadsheet per building stops being enough, a connected CMMS runs the regime: every door a record carrying its own gap history, an escape route failure as a live condition rather than a row in a list, repairs that cannot close without a re-inspection, and repeat failures on the same door surfacing as a pattern rather than as three unrelated entries.
