Automatic Sliding Doors

An electric motor in the header drives a belt, which moves carriers running on a track; the door leaves hang from those carriers and are guided at the floor. A control board decides when to move, taking its instructions from the sensors — a motion sensor to open, a presence sensor to hold the door open while somebody is in the opening. When the sensors go quiet the board waits a set hold-open time, then closes at a controlled speed. Everything that goes wrong with these doors is in that chain, which is why diagnosis starts with the sensors and not the motor.

Break-out means the sliding leaves swing outward when pushed hard from inside, giving a clear opening even with no power. On an exit route it is not optional, because the door has to release people during a power failure or an evacuation. It has to be specified with the door — the leaves, the hardware and the header are all different — so it cannot be added afterwards without replacing them. If you are not sure whether an existing slider breaks out, we check it as part of an inspection.

A bi-parting door has two leaves that meet in the middle and slide apart, each one stacking beside the opening. A telescopic door has two leaves per side that nest as they slide, so it clears a much wider opening from the same side room — the reason to pay for it is almost always that there is not enough wall beside the door to park a single leaf. Single-slide is one leaf moving one way, and it needs side room equal to the whole clear opening, which is why it suits narrower doors.

Less than the opening, always. The framing, the parked leaves and the guide rails all take space, so the clear width is a specified number rather than the width of the hole in the wall. It matters because the barrier-free requirement in the Ontario Building Code is written against clear width, not overall size, so an entrance can look generous and still fail. We work backwards from the clear width you need to the configuration and rough opening that produce it.

Typically 4–6 weeks to produce the door once shop drawings are approved, then 1–2 weeks to schedule the job and install it — about 5–8 weeks in total, depending on the size of the project. Sliders sit at the longer end of that range because the operator, the framing and the tempered glass all have to land together, and a missing lite holds the whole entrance. The install itself is usually a day or two per opening, and it is routinely scheduled overnight so the entrance is working when the building opens.

Almost always repaired. Sensors, belts, carriers, rollers, guides, control boards and motors are all replaceable in place, and we hold parts for the lines we deal in. Replacement becomes the honest answer in three cases: the framing is damaged or out of square beyond adjustment, the system is old enough that boards and carriers are no longer made, or the opening now has to do something it was never built for — usually become barrier-free or wider. We will tell you which of those you are looking at before quoting.

They do, but Ontario winters are what test them. Grit and salt in the floor track are the leading cause of slow and juddering doors from January onwards; water freezing at the threshold is the second; and the sensor package is affected by low sun and by the wet floor mats that appear at every entrance in November. A thermally broken frame and the right seals cut the condensation and drafts, and a winter service visit is worth more than a summer one on any exterior slider.

Yes — most of the sliders we look after were installed by somebody else. We are dealers for Record, Assa Abloy and Entrematic, and we work on other makes as well; where a board or carrier is obsolete we say so rather than chase a part that no longer exists, and quote the operator replacement against the framing you already have. An AAADM inspection on an inherited door is usually the least expensive way to find out what condition it is really in.