Carpentry & Joinery in Colindale

Carpentry & Joinery in Colindale: what is different here

Fire doors at the front and sometimes inside the flat

The entrance door to a flat in a block is a fire door, fitted as part of the building's fire strategy. In blocks with storeys over 11 metres, the responsible person has to make every reasonable effort to check flat entrance doors every year under the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022. In higher-risk buildings, those of 18 metres or seven storeys with two or more homes, residents must not interfere with safety items in the common parts under section 95 of the Building Safety Act 2022. Inside many new flats, the doors from the entrance hall into the living room, kitchen and bedrooms are fire doors too, because the hall is the protected escape route.

Before replacing an internal door with a standard one, look for a label on the top or hinge edge, or ask the managing agent. We repair and adjust fire doors in ways that keep them working, such as tightening hinges or easing a binding edge without cutting into the seals, and we do not swap or modify a flat entrance door without written agreement from the managing agent.

Doors trimmed after new flooring

Replacing carpet with hard flooring usually means an acoustic underlay, and many Colindale leases require one. The new floor sits higher, so internal doors stop clearing it. We take each door off, trim the bottom by the right amount, seal the cut edge and rehang it.

On fire doors the gap at the bottom is part of how the door performs, so we trim no more than it needs. If the flooring has not been fitted yet, tell the floor fitter which doors are fire doors before they start.

Storage around the heat interface unit and consumer unit

Colindale's compact layouts leave little storage, and the obvious place for a cupboard is often the utility cupboard holding the heat interface unit, cylinder or consumer unit. That equipment needs to stay reachable for the heat supplier's engineer and our electrician, and some of it needs air around it.

We build shelving and fitted doors that leave the equipment accessible, with removable panels in front of meters and valves, and we keep the flat's stopcock reachable. Alcove wardrobes, hallway cupboards and storage under a bed platform are the other common requests.

Kitchen and bathroom joinery in the first ten years

Developer kitchens begin to show wear in their first decade. The plinth beside the dishwasher swells after a small leak, hinges drop, worktop joints open and end panels lift. Bath panels in new flats are often a single board held with clips that break. We replace plinths, re-hang and adjust doors, reseal joints and refit bath panels so they can still be taken off to reach the waste.

Matching the developer's door fronts can be difficult once a range is discontinued, so keep any spares that came with the flat.

Locks for shared flats under Barnet's licence

For a Colindale flat licensed as an HMO, Barnet's conditions require entrance doors and any accessible windows to be secure and fitted with suitable locks. Bedroom doors, where locks are fitted, and final exit doors must open from the inside without a key, to BS 8621:2017, so a thumb-turn on the inside. If you are converting a flat for sharers, we fit compliant locks to bedroom doors and check that none of the doors on the escape route can be locked against someone trying to leave.

Balconies, screens and anything outside

Timber decking, planters built into balustrades and privacy screens are common requests, but the balcony is part of the outside of the building, and the freeholder controls it. After Grenfell, combustible materials on the outside of taller residential buildings have been tightly restricted, and most leases forbid fixing anything to the balcony structure without consent. Ask the managing agent before ordering anything. Freestanding furniture that is not fixed to the building is the usual compromise.

Official sources

• GOV.UK fire doors fact sheet, 2022 Regulations
• GOV.UK high-rise building registration
• Building Safety Act 2022, s95
• Barnet licence conditions, July 2022 (archived)
• Cambridge Network, September 2020: Colindale Gardens heat network
• Census 2021 accommodation type, Colindale wards (Nomis)

Last reviewed October 2026 by EliteShires Property Services.