Usually renewal
Painted or contaminated seals
Repeated redecoration in communal areas is the most common cause. Renewal into a cleaned groove is normally the sound remedy rather than stripping in place.
Guide
Fire Door Intumescent & Smoke Seals: Repair and Replacement
Seal defects are cheap to put right and expensive to ignore. This page is about the remedial decision — what condition means for a seal, what a compatible replacement looks like, and how seal entries on a report get priced, completed and evidenced.
What We Are Actually Assessing
When a seal item appears on a report, the useful question is not what a seal does, but whether this seal, in this groove, on this doorset, can still be relied on. That is a condition and compatibility judgement made at the door.
We look at whether the seal is continuous and complete, whether it is properly seated in a groove of the right size, whether it has been overpainted or contaminated, whether it has been replaced previously with something the doorset does not support, and whether the leaf and frame around it are sound enough for a renewal to last.
Findings We Are Sent Most Often
Usually renewal
Loose, lifting or missing lengths
Seals peeling out of the groove, short lengths butted together with gaps, or sections missing entirely after previous hardware work.
Usually renewal
Damaged or crushed brush seals
Smoke seal brushes worn flat, torn or removed where a door has been binding. Renewed with a compatible item once the binding cause is dealt with.
Depends on evidence
Seals the doorset does not support
Wrong size, wrong type or a seal fitted to a face rather than into the specified groove. Assessed against the doorset documentation before a remedy is proposed.
Wider works
Grooves cut, filled or damaged
Where the groove has been widened, filled or broken away along the leaf edge, making good may be possible; where it is not, the leaf or doorset is the honest answer.
Related
Seals recorded alongside gaps
A seal that no longer meets the frame is often a gap or alignment problem. We correct the cause at the same visit rather than renewing a seal into a door that still does not close correctly.
Matching Replacements to the Doorset
Seals are not interchangeable. Type, size, position and whether smoke control is included all relate to what the doorset was tested and documented with, and to the manufacturer's installation instructions. Fitting a generic strip because it fits the groove is not a remedy we would record as complete.
Where the doorset can be identified, we match the replacement to that evidence. Where it cannot, we say so and set out the options rather than closing the item on assumption.
- Type and size matched to the doorset documentation where identifiable
- Grooves cleaned and made good before renewal
- Continuous lengths with joints kept to a minimum and correctly formed
- Smoke seals renewed where the door calls for smoke control
- Binding, gap and hardware causes addressed at the same visit
- Items recorded against door references for your building file
Seal Items Within a Remedial Programme
Seal entries are almost never mobilised for alone. They are completed alongside gap and clearance adjustments, hinge renewals and closer work on the same doors, which is what makes a programme worth the visit.
Send us the report or action list you hold and we will price the seal items line by line. Our guide to what happens after an inspection explains the sequence from report to completed works, and records and close-out covers the evidence you receive afterwards.
Related Pages
Seal work sits within the wider remedial picture.
Frequently Asked Questions
Seal Defects to Put Right?
Send us your report or action list and we will price the seal entries against your door references, together with the gap, hinge and closing work usually recorded on the same doors.