Cost Guide
For a care home, the cost of fire door work depends both on the door-by-door work required and on how that work has to be delivered safely around residents and staff. This guide explains what a care home quotation needs to contain so a manager, owner or estates lead can budget with confidence, without relying on a generic price per door.
Generic per-door figures live on our repair cost and installation and replacement cost guides. This page covers the factors that are specific to care settings and that can explain why two quotations for the same building differ.
Scope
Defects such as gaps, seals, closers, hinges or latching may be repairable, but only where the door or doorset evidence and its condition support the proposed work. Replacement may be scoped where condition, previous alterations, available evidence or the required specification do not support repair.
Interfaces
Doors held open on alarm-released devices or fitted with access control involve more than one trade. Who isolates, refits and tests the equipment changes the price and must be written into the scope.
Delivery
Bedroom doors may only be available while a resident is out of the room or with agreement from staff. Short windows, out-of-hours working and small daily batches are priced differently from clear-run working.
Evidence
Door-referenced records of what was done, with product information where doors or components are replaced, take time to produce and should be included rather than assumed.
A care home budget is only as reliable as its door list. Give each opening a reference and keep the categories separate, because a bedroom door, a corridor cross door and a kitchen door may not need the same work.
Within a quotation, cost generally divides into labour time on site, the doors or components supplied, and allowances for making good and clearing. In care settings, working arrangements can affect labour time, for example where a task has to be broken up around residents.
Differences between quotations can come from what each one leaves out. Ask for each of the following to be stated as included, excluded or provisional, so different quotations can be compared on the same basis.
A site may choose to phase the works. Where it does, access arrangements and the sequence of work — for example communal and compartment doors separately from resident bedroom doors needing room-by-room agreement — should be agreed with the home before the quotation, so the price reflects how the work will actually be delivered.
The practical side of working in occupied buildings is covered in our guide to remedial works in occupied buildings, and the care setting itself in fire doors for care homes and supported housing.
Doors held open for residents may involve more than one system and trade. Faults may sit in the door, the closer or the device, and the device may be wired to the fire alarm. Our hold-open devices guide explains typical fault types. For pricing, the key point is that the division of work between trades must be agreed before the quotation, or the price will either omit necessary steps or duplicate them.
Send the report or FRA action list, any door schedule you hold, photographs and your access constraints through our contact form. We return a written quotation listing door references, the proposed action for each, inclusions, exclusions, provisional items and VAT basis. Where a pre-works site visit is needed to confirm the scope, it covers our works only; any formal inspection or report is arranged separately through an external specialist partner.
Care-setting guidance, generic cost owners and component guides relevant to care homes.
Send the report, FRA action list or door schedule and your access constraints. We return a door-by-door written quotation with inclusions, exclusions and VAT basis stated.