We believe the fire door industry is moving — rightly — towards independent, verifiable proof of competence. This is an honest update on where South Coast Fire Doors sits on that journey.
For years, “qualified” has meant different things to different contractors. A training certificate on the wall is not the same as an independent body auditing your work against a standard, year after year. As specifiers, insurers and building-safety cases increasingly ask for that second kind of assurance, we have set out to earn it.
What third-party certification actually is
Third-party certification means an independent, UKAS-accredited body assesses and audits our work — rather than us marking our own homework. It is the gold standard for demonstrating that fire door inspection, installation and maintenance is carried out to a consistent, verifiable quality. We have explained the difference between training-based approval and true third-party certification in our guide.
Where we are now
We are currently working through assessment towards Bluesky Certification for installation, inspection and maintenance, and towards the Common Assessment Standard (via SMAS Worksafe Pro) for contractor pre-qualification. Both are in progress, and we want to be completely straight about that: until those assessments complete, we make no claim to already hold third-party certification.
What we do hold today is genuine, verifiable competence — ABBE Level 3 qualified inspection, UK Fire Door Training approvals, FireQual certification and Fire Protection Association membership. You can see the full picture on our accreditations page.
Why we are telling you this now
Because honesty about certification is the whole point. The buildings we work on carry real risk, and the people responsible for them deserve to know exactly what assurance they are getting. We would rather show you the journey than overstate the destination.
We will post updates here as each assessment completes. In the meantime, if you are a managing agent, landlord or responsible person who needs documented, defensible fire door work, talk to us — we are happy to show our evidence.
— Daniel Storr, Founder & Managing Director