How to have confidence in your fire safety door supplier

Ty Aziz, Managing Director of Sentry Doors, shows why choosing a trusted partner has never been more important.

There is no one working in housing management today who does not recognise the crucial importance of choosing and working with the right fire safety door supplier. This magazine’s recent survey revealed that 95% of participants believed fire doors to be the single most important product in the fight to prevent fires. So how do you ensure that you can have the confidence in your supplier to create the foundation of a trusted, ongoing partnership that protects tenants’ long term?

At Sentry Doors we believe that it is of course, about choosing the right, great doorset at the highest standards of safety, but it is also about knowing that this doorset will be manufactured to your exacting requirements and delivered when you need it. With Housing Management and Maintenance’s survey revealing the horrifying figure that 54% of doors were classified as ‘broken’ when inspections were carried out, timely delivery has never been more important. While we operate at the highest standards of safety, we also ensure the most exacting lead times in the business at six to eight weeks, with constant contact to make sure you always have confidence.

Safety first

Most importantly, it is all about knowing that the doorsets you choose have been tested to the extreme and that a UKAS accredited third party certification body such as BM Trada has certified them as working as intended to withstand fire in the chosen environment. In addition, this means that ongoing maintenance is carried out against the fire door’s original specification.

Fire doors also need to be dual certified: they meet exacting requirements for fire door manufacture and for enhanced security and that this is incorporated at the design stage.

Confidence also comes from pre-assembly – doorsets that are precisely manufactured to fit a bespoke aperture and provided as complete sets rather than kits do not offer the same room for human error when nothing can be left to chance.

A consistent, certified process

But alongside this, confidence in your supplier comes from knowing that they are an established manufacturer with a consistent quality standard: compliance to ISO9001 or above is important. Do they continually invest in the manufacturing process and plant for example? At Sentry Doors we are very proud of our investment in new CNC machines and paint lines; we urge our customers to visit our factory and see our operation. For those that can’t make it to Doncaster we offer virtual factory tours so that our customers can see us in action.

The right door at the right time

Then, to meet your work schedules and protect your customers, timely delivery is essential. At Sentry we have more than thirty years’ experience working with contractors, and we make sure we understand project schedules almost as well as you do. Our customers deal with the same account managers who are always available to provide assurance at every stage of the door making process. Our ongoing commitment to a six-to-eight-week lead time means we will communicate the planned delivery date at least five weeks’ ahead. We reinforce that at three weeks to ensure all components are in place for a smooth installation. A week ahead our transport team will be in contact to make sure there are no hiccups or surprises – and we confirm it all again the day before planned delivery.

Trust in the entire manufacturing process

Trust is more important than ever and at Sentry, we are proud of the people, the planning and the processes that ensure that. When something goes wrong, we fix it immediately. We commit to our lead times and have achieved them consistently throughout the pandemic.

This means our customers — working on some of the most important replacement projects in social housing — trust in every aspect of Sentry’s operation. We know this because they return for their next project knowing that Sentry provides the confidence they require.

Why not pay us a visit or give us a call on 01302 337 473 to talk to the great people behind that promise?

www.sentrydoors.co.uk