Maintainance, Roll Up Doors, Rolling Doors

Maintaining Rolling Doors

Name: R&S Erection of Concord
Address: 2424 Bates Ave., Concord, CA, 94520, US
Telephone: (925) 671-7606

December 16, 2016Maintainance, Roll Up Doors, Rolling Doors

maintaining-rolling-doors

It gets wet this time of year and that makes your commercial building susceptible to moisture and direct contact with water. If you haven’t done so already, get your crew together and perform a little maintenance to help your rolling steel doors do the job they were designed to do.

Skipping routine maintenance steps can mechanical parts to gunk up, slow down or corrode – which compromises your doors’ performance.

Maintenance Tips & Recommendations for Efficient Rolling Steel Doors

Here are some of the DIY maintenance tips we recommend to protect your doors and your business. Don’t have time to get it done yourself? Contact a local commercial door installer and they’ll be happy to come out and perform the maintenance for you.

Keep the tracks, equipment and surrounding areas clean. Perhaps one of the simplest and easiest things you can do is to keep the door tracks, equipment and the area around the doors and tracks clean. The more dirt, dust and debris accumulates, the harder it is for your doors to work well. Also, organic material often absorbs water, so if that pile of leaves or a soft twig or two makes its way into the door track or other parts, the constant exposure to resting moisture makes metal parts more prone to rust and corrosion.
Lubricate the track and mechanical parts. Most rolling steel metal doors have metal-to-metal interactions. While this combination makes them durable, it also leaves them susceptible to rust and corrosion. Keeping your tracks and metal mechanical parts lubricated is necessary for your door to work efficiently, and it’s also necessary to maintain your doors’ warranties. Don’t forget to also lubricate the door’s springs, hinges and locks. We recommend using a lithium grease product. Silicone lubricants are another good option.
Make sure you have the right operator. Did you move into a building with existing rolling doors? If so, consider scheduling a free consultation with a professional commercial door installer to see if the operator and other door equipment is the right fit for your business’s needs. Door operators come in all different types. If the business owner before you was trying to save a buck, or had a business that didn’t utilize the doors on a rigorous basis, the current door operator might require an upgrade to ensure it can hold up to its current frequency of use. A reliable and reputable commercial door installer will not tell you to upgrade unless they truly feel it’s necessary. If they do, it’s worth the investment to ensure your door can keep up with the demands of your business.
Consider installing a strip door. Does your business spend a significant time with the rolling doors up and bays open? If so, consider installing strip doors. These affordable additions have multiple benefits, not the least of which is protecting your door and it’s mechanical parts from environmental debris, moisture, pests, dirt, etc. They also enhance the building’s daylighting, conserve heating and cooling costs and they don’t inhibit employee’s entrance and egress from the building.
Sign up for a maintenance plan. Have a local commercial door vendor you work with on a regular basis? Give them a call and ask them about their maintenance plan options. This is a simple way to ensure your commercial doors – both rolling steel and otherwise – are all inspected and maintained on a regular basis. In some cases, you may only need a routine maintenance appointment bi-annually. In others, more frequents maintenance may be required. By joining a maintenance plan, you don’t have to calendar anything but can rest assured that your doors will be maintained and repaired on a regular basis.

Are you interested in learning more about the routine maintenance that will keep your Bay Area business’s doors operating smoothly and efficiently, day in and day out. Contact us here at R&S and we’ll be happy to come out for a free consultation and provide estimates for whatever you need.

High-Speed Doors, Loading Dock, Roll Up Doors

All About High-Speed Doors

October 27, 2016High-Speed Doors, Loading Dock, Roll Up Doors

When you’re in the market for a new or replacement commercial roll up door, you need a product that is reliable, functional, durable and secure. While the standard commercial roll up door might be for you, many business owners find that high-speed doors are a better fit for their business.

While high-speed doors are considered newer kids on the commercial roll up door block, they bring you the benefit of better and faster overall performance, which can increase productivity and safety for your business.

What is a High-Speed Door?

High-speed doors work similarly to their standard counterparts but they use higher powered mechanics that increase cycle performance. In addition to cycling speeds ranging from 24-feet to 96-feet per second, most high-quality models can handle an unlimited number of opening and closing cycles per day without any signs of undue wear and tear.

They are popular with a range of businesses, most especially those where efficiency, temperature or air quality control and quick partitioning are of the essence. High-speed doors are designed in a range of models, including:

Basic
All-weather
Freezer
Clean Room
And more

Benefits of High-speed Doors

There are plenty of benefits reaped by business owners who install high-speed doors. These benefits include:

Efficiency and Productivity

Every second spent waiting for your warehouse doors to open and close is wasted time. High-speed doors are a simple way to increase worker efficiency and productivity. For example, consider the time spent opening and closing the doors accessing your loading dock. Multiply the seconds it takes to open and close doors, by the number of rolling doors you have on site, by the number of times they open each day.

Now, multiply that by the number of days you’re open per year – and we bet you’ll be shocked at how many hours are wasted in the simple act of opening and closing doors for daily business operations. High-speed doors will slash those hours significantly, and that’s mean money put directly back into your pockets.

Weather protection

The merchandise stored immediately to the interior of your warehouse or commercial building’s doors are susceptible to inclement weather whenever those doors are open. While strip doors can certainly help in this arena, high-speed doors do a much better job. At the first sign of wind, rain or a dust storm, the doors can be closed immediately, protecting valuable merchandise from destruction, damage and/or contamination.

Temperature and air quality control

The longer access doors are open, the more difficult it is to control the temperature in the interior spaces. Freezer high-speed doors are designed to function in temperatures as low as -22° F, so your frozen products or materials will be protected from the temperature of surrounding areas.

Similarly, special clean room models come equipped with minimal leak flow and pneumatic bottom edge detectors to minimize contamination between interior and exterior spaces, as well as specially divided interior spaces housing contaminant-sensitive products. Clean room high-speed doors are rated for interior contamination control in the pharmaceutical, hospital, laboratory, electronic and other controlled environments.

Energy savings

Again, the less time your doors spend in the open or cracked position, the less your heating and cooling systems have to work to maintain the building’s preferred temperatures. Since high-speed doors open and close so quickly, businesses experience notable energy savings during the peak hot and cold seasons. Reduced fuel costs are another unforeseen gain in efficiency because high-speed doors mean less time forklift operators, delivery and other service vehicles will spend idling as they wait. This is also a benefit to companies focused on environmentally friendly business practices.

Are you interested in learning more about your high-speed commercial rolling door options? Contact us here at R&S. We’re the Bay Area’s leading installers and maintenance professionals for commercial and industrial doors.

Box Truck Roll Up Doors, Roll Up Doors

Maintaining Your Box Truck Roll Up Doors

August 23, 2016Box Truck Roll Up Doors, Roll Up Doors

maintaining-your-box-trucks-roll up-doors

Box truck roll up doors experience some of the heaviest wear and tear of any commercial doors on the market. Unlike the roll up doors in warehouses or delivery bays – that often remain open or closed for long periods of time – box truck roll up doors are used continuously through the day. Plus, they’re prone to continuous vibrations caused by a life on the road.

Truck doors are opened and closed with every delivery they make, and are prone to the banging and clanging of whatever objects pass their way. They may have an occasional ding here and there from having been “backed up” for just a second or two longer than necessary – and then there is the threat of vandalism, which adds another host of paint coats, intentional dents and other damage to the mix.

Increase the Lifespan of Box Truck Roll Up Doors

Regular maintenance is the key to increasing the lifespan of your box truck roll up doors. By giving them the once over on a regular basis, and then scheduling them for professional maintenance every year or six-months, you’ll find your repair and/or replacement bills will decrease from year to year.

Regular maintenance will ensure your truck’s rolling doors:

Operate quietly, which is important for early morning deliveries in mixed-use communities
Reduces wear and tear on the door’s mechanical parts
Increases worker safety, reducing the risk of rolling door-related accidents
Keeps your truck looking more professional and presentable, which is good for your brand
Lowers costs spent on unnecessary repairs and replacements

Here are some of the things you can do to keep your truck’s roll up doors operating smoothly and efficiently on a daily basis.

Keep it clean. The more you can keep your rolling door, it’s tracks and the mechanical parts free of dust and debris, the smoother and more consistently they will work. Make it a practice to keep the area around the door clean, and sweep it regularly to prevent dust, leaves, twigs and cardboard/plastic/wrapper scraps and other small items out of the bed of your truck.
Never force it. A well-maintained rolling truck door should not require excessive force to open or close. If it does, it’s a sign that something needs to be looked at ASAP. If you continue to force a “tricky door”, you risk increasing the severity of the existing damage, which can increase the total costs for repair. You also put yourself, customers and other employees at risk for injury.
Keep mechanical parts lubricated. The hinges and rollers must be greased, or lubricated, to work as they were designed. This helps to free them of inescapable dust and airborne particulates and also protects them from moisture and the elements. Refer to the manufacturer’s guidelines regarding how often to grease the rollers and hinges, as well as to verify which products are recommended. Failure to follow the manufacturer’s recommendations could cause you to void the warranty.
Bring it in for a check-up. Rolling door installers are happy to provide regular “check ups,” giving your truck’s doors the once-over. Consider scheduling a service appointment every six months or so. Combine it with maintenance inspections for your fire doors, other commercial doors and/or loading dock area so you don’t forget. The maintenance company will be happy to calendar these visits for you so you don’t have to remember. Regular maintenance is the best way to prevent smaller, insignificant adjustments or repairs from becoming larger and more expensive versions.
Repair or replace a door if there are obvious signs of a problem. For a small and medium-sized business, the bottom line is pretty darn thin. Even so, holding off on a necessary repair or replacement part can wind up costing you way more if the door gives out at an inopportune time or – worse – winds up injuring a worker or customer. Always call rolling door repair company at the first sign of trouble.

Is one of your fleet’s rolling doors giving you trouble? Contact us here at R&S so we can take a look. We’re happy to replace broken springs, cables, sections, and other box truck rolling door parts to help keep your truck on the road. (925) 671-7606.

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