Fire door regulations
Fire Door Regulations for Property Developers
Fire door decisions made at the design stage of a development are far cheaper to get right than fixing them after occupation. Developers need to think about fire door specification, certification and documentation at each stage of a project, not just at final fit-out, particularly since the Building Safety Act introduced gateway checkpoints that a project must pass through.
By Daniel, Director · 4 August 2026 · 6 min read
Getting fire door specification right at design stage
The fire strategy, developed alongside the architectural design, determines which doors in a building need a fire rating and what rating each one needs. Specifying this correctly at design stage avoids the far more expensive alternative of discovering a shortfall during building control sign-off or, worse, after occupation. A fire engineer's strategy document should specify FD30 or FD60 doorsets by location, not leave this to be decided on site by whoever is fitting doors that week.
Gateway checkpoints under the Building Safety Act
For higher-risk buildings, generally those over 18 metres or seven storeys with at least two residential units, the Building Safety Act introduced a series of gateway checkpoints a project must pass through, from planning through to occupation. Fire door specification and, later, evidence of correct installation are exactly the kind of detail a gateway review will ask to see documented, so keeping thorough records throughout the build, not just at the end, saves time when each gateway is reached.
From specification to completion
Consistency between what was specified, what was ordered, and what was fitted is where developments most often run into trouble.
Specify by location
Every door rated in the fire strategy document, referenced against the building's own drawings.
Certified doorsets only
Complete, tested systems ordered as a unit, not assembled on site from separately sourced parts.
Photographed installation
Evidence of correct fitting kept as work happens, not reconstructed after the fact.
Handover pack
Certification for every doorset compiled and handed to building control and the future building owner or managing agent together.
Why this matters after the site closes
Once a development is occupied and the developer has moved on, the fire door records handed over at completion become the building's only evidence of correct installation. A managing agent or facilities team inheriting the building with no clear documentation is left having to survey every door from scratch to establish a baseline, at their cost rather than the developer's. Getting the paperwork right at handover avoids that entirely.
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Installation and Remediation of Fire Doors
What BS 8214:2026 requires, and how to tell whether an installation has been done correctly. The same guide applies whichever part of the country your building is in.