The honest answer: it depends on traffic
A pub front door, a hospital lobby and a plant-room access door all get called “commercial doors”, but their wear profiles are wildly different. A schedule that works for one will be either wasteful or negligent for another. The right service interval is the one that catches wear before it becomes failure — and the only honest input to that is the door’s actual traffic count.
Service intervals by door type and traffic
These are working defaults across our UK portfolio. They are not universal — any door with unusual wear (coastal corrosion, salt-air, vehicle impact zone, very high traffic) justifies more frequent visits.
- Aluminium shopfront, moderate traffic (under 500 openings/day): six-monthly. Closer adjust, pivot check, latch test.
- Aluminium shopfront, high traffic (500–2,000/day): quarterly.
- Aluminium shopfront, very high traffic (2,000+/day, e.g. shopping centre concourse): monthly or bi-monthly.
- Automatic sliding door, retail: six-monthly minimum; annual force test mandatory (BS EN 16005).
- Automatic sliding door, hospital/transport: quarterly. Continuous duty cycle justifies it.
- Roller shutter, retail nightly close: six-monthly — spring tension, motor brake, photo-cell safety.
- Roller shutter, warehouse goods-in: quarterly — high vehicle-impact risk, fast-action duty cycle.
- Fire door, office/low-occupancy: six-monthly inspection.
- Fire door, HMO/hotel/healthcare: quarterly inspection.
- Steel security door: annual hardware inspection; semi-annual lock and access control if integrated.
Statutory minimums you cannot push past
A handful of door categories carry legal inspection requirements that override any commercial preference for less-frequent visits.
Fire doors — under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the Responsible Person must ensure fire compartmentation remains effective. There is no specific interval in the FSO, but BS 8214 (timber fire doors) and BS 9999 (general fire safety) point to six-monthly minimum, with quarterly recommended in higher-risk premises. In our experience regulators expect to see at least six-monthly evidence on any commercial site.
Automatic doors — BS EN 16005 (the safety standard for power-operated pedestrian doors) requires an annual force test as a minimum. The test verifies the door cannot exceed safe contact force on a person. Without a current test record, the door is operating outside its safety certification.
Industrial doors — the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER) requires power-operated industrial doors to be maintained in safe working order and inspected at intervals appropriate to the risk. There is no specific interval, but six-monthly is the trade default for fast-action and sectional doors.
When ad-hoc inspection is justified
Schedule an extra inspection visit, separate from the routine service, after any of the following: a break-in or attempted forced entry, vehicle impact to a frame or shutter, a tenant change (the new tenant’s use pattern may differ), refurbishment work in the building (subfloor changes can affect door alignment), or after any incident that triggers an insurance claim.