As a pest inspectors, we spend a lot of time looking at doors, gaps and potential entry points. A gap under a door can be a perfectly sensible route for a mouse to get into a building, so we often advise sites to improve proofing — sometimes by fitting a suitable brush or proofing strip to the bottom of the door.

Then came one particular door.  I advised a site that the existing door was unlikely to be suitable for proofing and that the door itself probably needed to be replaced. They were, understandably, not impressed.

The response was essentially: “What do you know about fire doors?”

My honest answer was: “Not a lot — but I’ll find out.” So I did.

I undertook the training and became an approved fire door inspector. What started as a question about whether a pest-proofing measure could be fitted to a door opened up an entirely new area of work for JFD.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Today, JFD carries out independent fire door inspections alongside our pest and environmental consultancy work. It is a natural fit: we already spend our time looking closely at buildings, identifying defects, understanding how doors and building fabric function, and highlighting issues that could affect compliance or create risk.

The difference is that now, when we look at the bottom of a door, we are not just thinking about mice getting through it. We are also thinking about what that door is designed to do in a fire — and whether it is still capable of doing it.