Suburbs like Ruislip run on community buildings.
A hall that hosts a toddler group on Monday, a yoga class on Wednesday and a birthday party at the weekend. A sports club with a bar. A nursery in a converted house. A scout hut. These are not large buildings, but they hold people who do not know the layout.
If you run one of them, you are probably a volunteer or a manager without a facilities team, and the fire doors are not what you think about first.
Halls and clubs
The doors in a hall that matter are the ones round the kitchen, the boiler room and any store on the escape route. A kitchen door is propped open because the hatch is too small. The boiler room door has a gap you can slide a hand through.
The main hall exits are not always fire doors. They are often just doors, and that is fine if your fire risk assessment says so. Ours is a job of working through the doors your assessor has marked as fire doors and telling you what state they are in.
Nurseries
Nursery doors take a lot. Small hands, high chairs, door guards. Finger guards are common and are fine if they are fitted without cutting the leaf.
The edge that closes against the frame is where we find the damage. We look closely at the seals around the baby room door, because decorators tend to give those a fresh coat in the holidays.
Small workplaces
Along the roads and shopping parades there are small offices, surgeries and practices. A dentist's or a physio's practice will have a door between the waiting room and the treatment rooms, and one to the stair.
Who covers Ruislip
It is in the London Borough of Hillingdon and so London Fire Brigade is the enforcing authority.
When we come
Evenings and weekends suit halls better than weekday mornings. We can book either. If your hall is used every night, give us the quietest slot.
Cost
A small hall often has fewer than ten fire doors. A job like that starts from around £250 plus VAT.
We come from Luton, with no office in Ruislip, and we combine visits in this part of Hillingdon.
Questions we get asked
Does a village hall need fire doors?
If your assessment says it does, yes. The assessment is where that gets decided.
Do volunteers have a duty?
If you manage the premises, you may be the responsible person. That is a matter for your trustees and your assessor.
Send the postcode and a rough number of doors. A price comes back the same day.
Get a price