Hospital, Hotel & Cleanroom Doors

What the opening has to survive and what it has to keep out. Healthcare doors are specified for cleaning chemistry and infection control — flush faces, sealed edges, laminate or stainless surfaces with nothing to trap dust — and for the traffic of beds, carts and equipment, which is why armour plates, protective edges and continuous hinges are common. On top of that sit the fire rating of the separation, the acoustic requirement of a patient room, and often a barrier-free operator.

A door with sheet lead laminated into the core, used at X-ray, CT and imaging rooms so radiation does not pass through the opening. The lead thickness comes from the physicist's shielding report for that room, not from a catalogue, and the frame and any vision panel have to be lined to match. Lead doors are heavy, which changes the hinges, the closer and sometimes the frame — they are specified as a complete assembly.

Guest-room doors are usually rated wood assemblies with an acoustic specification, an electronic lock, a closer and a viewer, hung in labelled steel frames. The guest side is finished to match the corridor; the corridor side carries the rating. Ontario hotels replace them in floors rather than singly, and the constraint is always occupancy — the work runs room by room around the booking sheet.

Yes, and in hotels and hospitals it usually has to be. The two requirements are met by different parts of the assembly — the core and edges carry the rating, the mass, seals and drop seal carry the sound — and both have to be part of the listing. What you cannot do is add a drop seal or a gasket set to a labelled door afterwards and assume the label survives; it is specified together or not at all.

Flushness and sealing. A cleanroom door is designed so there is nothing for particles to settle on or escape from: flush faces, no raised trim, sealed or coved edges, gasketing all round, and hardware that wipes clean. Vision panels are flush-glazed for the same reason. Depending on the classification the opening may also need an interlock so two doors of an airlock cannot be open at once.

No — the material follows the room. Wood and laminate suit patient rooms, guest rooms, offices and corridors. Stainless suits sterile processing, kitchens and washdown areas. Traffic and impact doors go where carts and beds hit an opening all day and it does not need to lock or seal. Most institutional projects use two or three of these in the same wing, which is why we quote them together rather than by trade.

Yes, and most of this work is exactly that. Departments are phased, corridors hoarded, dust controlled and openings made good before we leave the area. Hotel floors are done room by room around occupancy, and hospital work is scheduled with the department rather than around it — which is what the phasing line in the quote is for.

If the door is a standard size, it takes 1–2 weeks to prepare the hardware and install it. If the door is a custom size or needs specific hardware, it can take 8–12 weeks to produce it and source the hardware. Then 1–2 weeks to schedule the job and install them, depending on the size of the project. Lead-lined, acoustic and specialty cleanroom assemblies sit at the longer end — they are engineered per room rather than pulled from a catalogue. On site, a single opening is usually a day's work; a whole wing or a new building is phased over several weeks.