The Best Industrial Doors

Imagine buying a computer, but being told that you have to get the outer cases from one supplier, the electronics from another, and that you needed a third source to put them all together. As terribly inconvenient as that sounds, that's basically what designers and architects must go through when it comes to putting doors in public buildings. Usually, a contractor must purchase the door from one manufacturer, the hardware from another, then find yet another supplier to install that hardware in the field, often with time consuming and costly results. Engineer Rory Riley explains, "the construction industry as a whole tends to be very conservative and what we've done for years we continue to do until some real cost savings can be shown. There's a huge cost advantage installing hardware in a factory versus in the field. Typical installation of a vertical rod type exit device takes two, three hours for a field installer to put in a door, in the factory because we have set templates to put it on we put it in in 15-20 minutes, so you pick up time and time as they say is money"

Architect James Dixon faced the particular challenges of finding a fire-rated cross-corridor door as he designed The Magnolia of Millbrae Assisted Living Facility, in California. With hundreds of doors in the plan, James needed an exit door design that was not only strong, reliable, and easy to install, but adhered to California's strict Accessibility and Clear Opening codes. He turned to Adams Rite Manufacturing, a company with close to 100 years of experience in the design of doors and door locking mechanisms. He had heard of their Rite Door product, an industrial door with pre-installed hardware that seemed to have the "right stuff" for this job. "First of all the first thing I look at when it comes to doors is the life safety issues, it has to meet all the code requirements. When you get a package unit like this door its all tested assemblies together, which when we go to the fire department and present a tested assembly, they buy off on it much quicker than if you came with a piece meal approach."

Kirk Karacozof with Capitol Builders who headed up the actual installation of the doors on the project had this to add about the Rite Door. "Also it's driven from a maintenance perspective. The doors have been designed so that they can be easily adjusted, again being installed at the manufacturing level, they have taken some of those adjustments into consideration, so when they are in the field there is very little adjustment, and if there is a problem, they are designed so that you can simply take them apart without any specials tools and simply make your adjustment." The doors not only meet all codes and are easy to install and maintain, but they are aesthetically pleasing as well. "We were looking to achieve a residential feel for the building…" Says Vincent A. Muzzi, President Magnolia of Millbrae, "… not a commercial appearance. This is one of those products that you want to have for safety purposes but you don't want it impeding the function of the building, you don't want it creating any problems for you, so you want a clean, simple, functional product."

We pass through doors in public places and commercial buildings everyday and probably pay very little attention to them. As with so many other things in our everyday lives, we use doors all the time, but never really notice them, until they do not work. It's easy to forget that many of the things we take for granted, have only become the simple conveniences they are, through continued innovation and improvements in design.