Decorating a sheltered housing block in south Manchester, around a fire door programme

At a glance

• Client: a main contractor, working for a housing association
• Building: a sheltered housing block of 48 flats over four floors in south Manchester (M20), with residents at home throughout
• Work: decorating the new fire door frames at every flat entrance, the risers and the cross-corridor screens, plus the stairwells and communal rooms, making good the walls round each frame and varnishing the new thresholds
• When: from June 2026, planned over 80 working days to keep pace with the door programme
• Paint: low odour, water-based paints

The job

The main contractor replaced the fire doors and frames across the building, and we followed behind with the decoration. We made good the walls round each new frame, then painted the frames at every flat entrance, the risers and the cross-corridor screens, along with the stairwells and communal rooms, and varnished the new thresholds. We worked floor by floor to the site manager's programme, finishing each section before moving on.

Working around residents

This is sheltered housing, so the people living there were at home the whole time. Residents had notice before we worked outside their flat. We used low odour, water-based paints, put up wet paint signs, kept corridors, stair routes and exits clear at all times, and cleared each area at the end of every day. The crew also had a toolbox talk on behaviour on site.

Every door on record

Floor plans for all four floors went into our own job app, with the flat numbers from the building's fire drawings, so every record matches the door programme flat by flat. Nobody could clock in until they had signed the job's risk assessment, method statement, COSHH and PPE assessments on their phone. Progress photos went on the job as we worked, and a report went to our directors at the end of every day.

Snags fixed in minutes

When our supervisor spotted a snag at a ground floor store room, he pinned it on the floor plan with a photo and assigned it. It was put right and checked off within two minutes, with a record of who raised it, who fixed it and who checked it. The site manager can see every snag by floor and by flat.

Repeat work

This was repeat work for the same main contractor, and while we were in the building the landlord asked us to price the communal redecoration as well.