New Guidance has been published by the Home Office to help conduct routine checks on fire doors and provide information to residents. This guide is aimed at Responsible Persons carrying out simple checks upon a fire door. It is based on the assumption that the fire risk assessment has already assessed the suitability of the fire doors.
This short guide is intended to assist those with duties under the Fire Safety (England) Regulations to comply with regulation 10, which makes requirements about fire doors in all buildings that contain two or more domestic premises and that contain common parts, through which residents would need to evacuate in a fire.
Regulation 10 makes requirements in relation to two matters, namely:
- information about flat entrance doors that the Responsible Person must give to all residents (whether tenants or leaseholders) – this requirement relates to all blocks of flats
- routine checks of fire doors that the Responsible Person must ensure are carried out – these checks are only required in blocks of flats in which the top storey is more than 11m above ground level (typically, a building of more than four storeys)
The guidance includes a simple checklist.
The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 were placed on the statute book on 18 May 2022, and came into force on 23 January 2023.
The full guidance is available here