Hillingdon is a district and a borough, and people mean either.
If you tell us "Hillingdon" we will ask for the postcode. The borough is big. It runs from Heathrow in the south to Harefield and Northwood in the north. The district is a smaller place on the Uxbridge side. A postcode saves a wasted phone call.
For fire door purposes the borough matters in one way. London Fire Brigade is the fire and rescue authority for all of it.
Houses divided into flats
A lot of the work in this part of the world is a house that has been divided. A semi on a main road is turned into two or three flats, or a larger house into a block of six.
Doors in those are often a mixture. The original internal doors, still on their old hinges and painted many times. A new flat door fitted by a landlord who wanted something cheap. A front door that belongs to the building.
We check which ones are doing the fire job and which are not. Often it is only the flat entrance doors and the doors on the stairs.
Panelled doors
Older houses have panelled doors, often four panels, often painted so many times that the edges are soft.
A panelled door does not have the same fire resistance as a flush certified door, and once it has been cut or planed it is hard to say what it will do. We say so in the report. The usual advice is a plain certified doorset in place of a panelled one, rather than trying to adapt it.
Landlords with a few doors
A landlord with a single house of four bedsits and a communal stair has maybe eight doors. That is a small job, and we price it as one. We do not need a big building to make a visit worthwhile.
Send us the postcode, the number of lets, whether the house is occupied and when we can get in.
What a visit looks like
We arrive, start at the top and work down. Each door is gauged, photographed and given a reference.
Afterwards you get the report. If you need repairs, our own crew can price them from it. You can also use your own carpenter.
Getting to you
We come from Luton. There is no office in Hillingdon. We drive in round the M25.
Questions we get asked
Which fire service covers us?
London Fire Brigade covers the whole borough.
Do you need to see the fire risk assessment?
It helps. If the assessor has noted something about the doors, we pick it up.
Send the postcode and a rough number of doors. A price comes back the same day.
Get a price