Automatic Doors in Innisfil

A closer is a mechanical device that shuts a door you opened yourself — a spring and a hydraulic damper, no power. An operator opens the door for you, under electric or electro-hydraulic power, and then controls the closing as well. They look similar from the floor because both live in a box above the door, and enquiries mix them up constantly. If nobody has to pull the door, it is an operator. If the question is only "how fast and how hard does it close", it is a closer, and that is door hardware rather than automation.

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.

Not as a blanket rule. The requirement comes from the Ontario Building Code's barrier-free provisions, which apply when you build or renovate, and from the AODA's Design of Public Spaces standard, which covers certain new and redeveloped exterior paths and entrances. Existing buildings are not ordered to retrofit every door. In practice most of our operator work is triggered by a permit, a renovation, an accessibility complaint or a tenant requirement rather than by an inspector arriving unannounced — and where the code does apply, the entrance also has to meet clear-width and opening-force limits, not just open by itself.