Door installation and repair in Bradford

Four things, and they are normally specified together because each one constrains the others. A dock leveler bridges the gap and the height difference between the dock floor and the trailer bed. A dock seal or shelter closes the gap around the trailer so the building is not heating the parking lot. Dock bumpers absorb the impact of a reversing trailer and hold it far enough off the wall to protect everything else. And the dock door itself — usually an insulated sectional — closes the opening when no trailer is there. Add controls, lights and a vehicle restraint and you have a complete position.

It is the motor and control that opens a door without someone pulling it. The word covers two different products: the automatic operator on a pedestrian entrance (sliding or swing, including barrier-free push-plate operators), and the overhead-door operator that lifts a sectional or rolling door. We supply, install and repair both — tell us which door it is and we will point you at the right one.

Aluminum conducts heat, so an exterior aluminum frame that is not thermally broken will lose heat and condense in a Canadian winter. That is why residential construction largely moved to vinyl — and why commercial construction did not: aluminum carries far larger areas of glass on slim sightlines, does not rust or warp, takes any anodized or powder-coat finish, and survives commercial traffic. The fix for the one real drawback is a thermally broken frame, which we specify on every exterior opening.

Typically 4–6 weeks to produce a door and frame once the shop drawings are approved, then 1–2 weeks to schedule the job and install it, depending on the size of the project. Stock-size doors in a common gauge and prep can be much faster; rated assemblies, custom sizes, galvannealed and stainless leaves and anything with unusual hardware prep set the schedule. Once it arrives, one door and frame is usually a day's work on site, while a full door schedule on a construction project runs for several weeks.

Adding a low-energy operator to a door that already hangs correctly is the least expensive way into automation, and the price is driven by three things rather than by the operator itself: whether there is power at the head of the opening, whether the frame and leaf can carry the load, and how many activation points you want. Running a new circuit to a header on an existing masonry wall routinely costs more than the operator does. That circuit is electrical work, so it has to be run by a certified electrical contractor, and it normally sits outside our scope. What we do is tell you exactly what the operator needs at the header before you order, so the electrician can be booked in alongside the door rather than chased afterwards.

Tape holds fragments together for photographs and nothing else — it does not make an opening secure or weathertight, and it leaves loose glass in a frame above a pavement. The real answer is a board-up: the remaining glass is cleared out, and plywood is cut and fixed into the frame so the building locks tonight. Ours is done with the glazing stops so the frame is not damaged, and the plywood comes out the day the new unit goes in.