Rolling Security Grilles

A closure built from aluminum links or rods with deliberate gaps between them, running in a guide each side of the opening and coiling onto a barrel above it. Mechanically it works exactly like a slat shutter; the difference is that you can see straight through it. That is the whole point — the unit is secured and the display behind it stays lit and visible, which is what a shopping centre wants along its concourse after hours.

Because a mall concourse lined with blank metal curtains looks derelict, and because the centre's own security depends on being able to see into every unit. A grille keeps the sightline: the centre's staff and cameras can see the shop floor on a night patrol, and the display keeps working as advertising to anyone walking past. Most centres write the closure type, the pattern and sometimes the finish into the tenant fit-out manual, so the choice is often made before you are involved.

Only how it gets out of the way. A rolling grille coils onto a barrel above the opening, so it needs headroom and leaves the jambs clear. A folding grille stacks sideways against a jamb, so it needs no headroom but does need wall to park against. Both are see-through, both suit mall units, and the opening usually decides: if there is room above the head, the rolling version is tidier and disappears completely when open.

Brick pattern, straight vertical rod and tighter lattice are the common three, and the difference is how much can be reached through. A wide brick pattern is the most open and the most common on mall units, because visibility is the reason it was chosen. Tighter spacing reduces what an arm can reach and suits a jewellery or electronics unit. Solid or polycarbonate infill panels can be mixed into a run where one bay needs to be blanked.

Only with care, and sometimes not at all. Any opening on an exit route has to be openable from inside without a key, a tool or special knowledge, and a locked grille across it defeats that. In practice grilles close units that are empty, with the egress handled by a separate door with the hardware the code requires. We work that out at the survey, not after the grille is made.

On a mall unit, usually yes. These openings are wide, they are cycled every trading day, and they are operated by whichever member of staff is closing up — the three conditions that between them account for nearly all the damage we repair on manual units. A tube motor with a key switch, plus a manual override for a power failure, removes the technique from the job. A narrow single-door grille cycled once a day is fine on a chain hoist.

Typically 4–6 weeks to produce once the opening is measured and the pattern and finish are confirmed, then 1–2 weeks to schedule and install — around 5–8 weeks in total, depending on the size of the project. Installation itself is usually a day per opening. In a mall it is done after concourse hours, and where the unit is still being fitted out, the grille pocket has to be coordinated before the ceiling closes.

Yes. MobilFlex build most of the see-through closures on mall units, bank lobbies and school serveries — rolling ones such as Roll-Flex and Roll-Vision, and side-folding ones such as the tempered-glass Royal and the open S-126 grille. We supply, install and repair them, including existing MobilFlex closures somebody else fitted.

Yes, and most of the ones we look after came from somebody else. The failures are predictable: the grille forced while still locked, a guide full of grit so it will not coil evenly, worn carriers, a bent bottom bar, a failed motor limit. All of it is replaceable, and links can be matched into an existing curtain rather than replacing the whole thing. Where a curtain is genuinely finished, the guides and barrel can often be reused.