If you own or manage a building with an automatic door, whether that is a corner shop in Stone, a surgery in Stafford or a warehouse office off the A34, BS EN 16005 is the standard your door is judged against. It is not a law in itself, but it is how the courts and the Health and Safety Executive decide whether a door was reasonably safe. This guide explains what it actually asks of you, without the jargon.
BS EN 16005 is the British and European standard for the safety in use of power operated pedestrian doorsets. It came into force in 2013 and replaced the older BS 7036 code of practice. It covers sliding, swing, folding and revolving automatic doors used by the public, staff or visitors on foot. It does not cover industrial roller shutters or vehicle gates, which fall under other standards.
The standard is aimed at the whole life of the door: how it is designed, how it is installed, how it is handed over and how it is maintained. That last part is where most building owners come unstuck. A door that met the standard on the day it was fitted in 2015 can easily fall short today if sensors have drifted, been painted over or simply never been tested since.
The core idea is that a moving door leaf must not be able to strike, crush or trap someone. For sliding doors this means presence sensors covering the full opening and closing path, so the door slows or stops if a person is standing in the threshold. For swing doors it means sensors on both faces of the leaf plus protection at the hinge side and the wall behind the door, where a child or wheelchair user can be pinned.
Where the door is used by vulnerable people, which in practice covers most shops, GP surgeries, pharmacies and care settings, the standard expects low energy operation or full sensor protection. Low energy means the leaf moves slowly enough that impact force stays under 67 newtons and kinetic energy under 1.69 joules. That is why a compliant swing door in a care home can feel noticeably slower than one in a private office.
Emergency escape routes have extra rules. If the automatic door is on a fire exit path, it must fail safe, either by breaking out manually or by opening on power loss, and it must be tested to do so. Battery backup units typically need replacing every three to five years, and a surprising number we inspect have long since died.
BS EN 16005 requires that the door is maintained by a competent person at intervals set by the manufacturer and by a risk assessment of the site. For a typical retail or public entrance in Staffordshire we recommend two visits a year. A quiet office door used by a handful of staff can usually manage on one annual visit. High footfall sites such as supermarkets and hospitals often justify quarterly checks.
A service visit under the standard should include a documented sensor test using the correct test bodies, measurement of closing force and speed, a check of the emergency escape function and battery, inspection of the floor guides, rollers and belt, and a review of signage. You should be given a written report noting any faults and whether the door was left compliant. Keep these reports, as they are the first thing an insurer or HSE inspector will ask for after an incident.
Costs vary with door type and access, but a single routine service visit in the Stone, Stafford and Stoke area generally falls somewhere between £90 and £180 plus VAT, with revolving doors and multi leaf sliders at the top of that range. Parts such as replacement safety sensors typically run from £150 to £400 each depending on the brand. A door that has never been serviced often needs more on the first visit to bring it back into line.
Many of the doors we see in the Midlands were installed before 2013 and have never been assessed against the current standard. You are not obliged to rip them out. The realistic path is a compliance survey, which identifies the gaps and puts them in order of risk. Common upgrades are adding a second presence sensor, fitting finger guards, replacing a dead battery, adjusting speeds and adding manifestation to the glass.
A full sensor and control upgrade on an older sliding door usually costs less than half the price of a new operator, and new operators start from roughly £2,500 fitted. If the operator itself is obsolete and parts are no longer available, replacement may be the sensible option, but a good engineer will tell you that plainly rather than steering you there by default.
Not directly, but the Health and Safety at Work Act and the Workplace Regulations require doors to be safe, and BS EN 16005 is the accepted way to show that. If someone is injured and your door does not meet it, you would struggle to argue you had done enough.
Rarely. It is written for doors used by the public or employees, so a private house is normally outside its scope. However if the property is a rental, a holiday let or has a home office visited by clients, the same principles apply and we would still recommend an annual check.
Look for a service label or logbook with a recent date, then stand in the doorway as it closes and see whether it stops before touching you. If it does not, or there is no record of testing in the last twelve months, arrange an inspection before anything else.
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