Compartmentation & Fire Door Surveys · Nationwide
Independent, evidence-based surveys of your building's passive fire protection - compartment walls and floors, fire stopping, cavity barriers and fire doors - for commercial and public-sector buildings across the UK. Every defect photographed, located and graded, in a report your responsible person can act on.
What we do
You can't manage what you can't see - and most compartmentation defects sit above ceilings, inside risers and behind doors nobody checks. MGN Group's surveyors inspect the fabric of your building against its fire strategy and record every deficiency with photographs, locations and a priority grading, giving you the technical foundation for your fire risk assessment and a costed route to compliance through our own fire stopping, fire door and cavity barrier teams.
Full building compartmentation audit - walls, floors, risers, ceiling voids and roof spaces - with deficiency reporting and photographic evidence, forming the technical foundation of your fire strategy.
View compartmentation surveysInspection of every fire door against the full 30+ point check - gaps, seals, glazing, hinges, closers, signage and certification - with a prioritised remedial schedule for each door.
View fire door surveysDetailed inspection of service penetrations, linear gaps and concealed cavities, identifying missing, damaged or non-compliant seals and barriers with locations plotted on plan.
View fire stopping surveysClear, graded reports - critical, high, medium, low - with photographs, plans and recommended remedial actions, written for responsible persons, fire risk assessors and insurers.
View condition reportsPre-acquisition and estate-wide surveys that give owners, purchasers and FMs a consistent picture of passive fire compliance and remedial cost across a portfolio.
View portfolio surveysDirect delivery of the remedial works our surveys identify, followed by re-inspection and close-out reporting - so findings are resolved by the team that found them.
View remedial worksWhere we work
One specialist team, mobilised nationally. MGN operates from Cumbernauld, between Glasgow and Edinburgh, and surveys buildings across Scotland, England and Wales.
From our Central Belt base we survey for commercial landlords, housing associations, NHS estates, universities and FM companies across Greater Glasgow, Edinburgh and the Lothians, and throughout Scotland. Edinburgh's listed buildings, converted tenements and Victorian commercial stock hide some of the most complex compartmentation we see - and it's where much of our surveying experience was built.
We survey single buildings and national portfolios for commercial estates, public-sector bodies and main contractors across England and Wales, reporting to one consistent standard so a portfolio in Glasgow, Manchester and Cardiff can be compared like for like.
Who we serve
We deliver passive fire protection surveys across a wide range of building types and sectors throughout the UK.
Offices, retail, corporate HQs and mixed-use premises.
Compartmentation and fire door surveys for hospitals, clinics and health centres.
Schools, colleges and universities - surveyed around term time.
Portfolio-wide fire door and compartmentation surveys for social housing.
Pre-handover verification of fire stopping, cavity barriers and fire doors.
Rolling survey programmes for FM companies managing large building portfolios.
Our credentials
Accreditation means an independent body has verified our processes, training and workmanship - not just our paperwork.
Fire door installation & maintenance
BM TRADA Q-Mark is the UK gold standard for fire door installation and maintenance. Holding this certification means our entire installation process - from specification to sign-off - has been independently assessed and approved. You can verify MGN's registration directly on the BM TRADA scheme website.
Verify our registrationFire door inspection certification
The Fire Door Inspection Scheme (FDIS) is the only nationally recognised scheme for fire door inspection in the UK. Only FDIS-registered inspectors can issue a fire door inspection certificate that carries genuine third-party weight with insurers and enforcing authorities. Most contractors offering fire door inspections are not FDIS registered.
Verify our registrationHealth & safety pre-qualification
CHAS (Contractors Health and Safety Assessment Scheme) is the standard pre-qualification requirement for most public sector procurement across the UK. If your building is NHS, council or publicly funded, MGN's CHAS accreditation means we can be appointed without additional vetting.
Institute of Fire Safety Managers
IFSM membership demonstrates ongoing commitment to professional development and regulatory awareness in fire safety management. It is a signal that MGN's team stays current with legislative changes and best practice - not just at time of certification, but continuously.
Client trust
“We were very pleased with the partitions and ceiling works carried out for our fit-out. The team were professional, reliable and delivered a high standard of workmanship throughout the project. We’re really happy with the finished result and would happily recommend their services.”
Tribe Yoga
“We were very pleased with the door installation and remedial works carried out at Balquhidder House to ensure the property aligned with compliance requirements. The team were professional, reliable and completed the work to a high standard, with excellent attention to detail throughout. We’re very happy with the finished result and would happily recommend their services.”
Balquhidder House
“We were very pleased with the firestopping works carried out at Thornton Care Home. The team were professional, reliable and completed the work to a high standard.”
Thornton care home
The law
The responsible person must know the condition of the fire safety measures in their building and keep them in efficient working order. A survey is how that knowledge is obtained and evidenced - and where a fire risk assessment flags compartmentation as a concern, a survey is the next step it will recommend.
Requires the responsible person in England & Wales to assess and maintain fire safety measures, including compartmentation and fire doors (Articles 9 and 17).
The equivalent duties for premises in Scotland, enforced by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.
Introduced routine fire door checks in multi-occupied residential buildings over 11m - quarterly for communal doors and annual for flat entrance doors - which our fire door surveys are structured to satisfy.
The fire risk assessment methodology, the fire safety design standard and the fire door installation code of practice against which our surveys report.
Most building owners are unaware of the breaches hidden above their ceilings and inside their risers until a survey exposes them - and an unsurveyed building leaves the responsible person exposed to liability they cannot see.
This summary is not legal advice - your own fire risk assessment sets out the specific duties for your building.
Quick answers
A systematic inspection of the fire-resisting walls, floors and ceilings that divide a building into compartments, checking that they are continuous, correctly constructed and that every service penetration, joint and cavity through them is fire-stopped or protected. Every defect is photographed, located on plan and graded by priority in a written report.
A fire risk assessment is a broad, legally required review of fire risk and management across the whole premises. A passive fire survey is a detailed, physical inspection of specific fire protection elements - compartmentation, fire stopping, fire doors - usually recommended by the assessment when it can't verify their condition. The survey provides the evidence and remedial schedule the assessment needs.
It depends on the size and complexity of the building - a single office floor can be surveyed in a day; a hospital block over several. Surveys are non-destructive: we lift ceiling tiles and open riser doors, work around occupants and clinical activity, and can survey out of hours where needed.
A written report with photographs of every defect, its location on plan, a priority grading and a recommended remedial action - plus a costed proposal to carry out the works if you want MGN to close them out. Reports are written to be handed straight to your fire risk assessor, insurer or board.
Yes. MGN carries out compartmentation, fire door and passive fire protection surveys for commercial and public-sector clients across Scotland, England and Wales, including rolling programmes across multi-site portfolios.
Whether you need a single building surveyed ahead of a fire risk assessment or a rolling programme across a portfolio, we respond within 48 hours and provide a clear, prioritised report on completion.