How long does an inspection take?

About ten minutes a door, give or take. The doors are not what take the time.

On a 15-door building we are usually done by lunch. If it is a school with 60 doors and the site manager has unlocked everything, one day. Our longest jobs are tall blocks of flats. Two hundred doors can eat a week, because half of them are behind a resident who is out at work.

Keys are the other thing. Riser cupboards, plant rooms, the door to the roof. If nobody on site can open it, we write "no access" and move on. That door needs another visit.

So the best thing you can do is ring round first. Get one person on site with the keys, put a note through the doors a week early and send us a floor plan if you have one.

We send the report once the visit is done and the invoice has been paid. If a door is dangerous on the day, say it will not shut at all, you hear about it before we leave.