One loading bay door takes 30 seconds to open. We do this 200 times a day. That means our doors are open for well over 1.5 hours just moving. Add the time people leave the door up because waiting is tedious. On a cold day the heating is working flat out for nothing.
That’s the problem high-speed doors solve. Generally, when the term is used in the UK, it means a door opening speed greater than 500 mm/s, and so you’ll also find them called rapid action doors, fast doors or PVC speed doors.
The three main types
Doors using a PVC curtain operate like a roll-up door but use fabric. These doors provide speed and economy and can be forgiving to fork truck impacts, though many can be designed to pop out of guides and reset. These types of doors are mostly used internally, to separate zones, or as a secondary door behind a main shutter.
Folding high-speed doors are made for large external openings where wind and weather are a concern. These can be seen on large exposed yards, or large sites in general, for storm protection.
Doors made from rigid spiral technology use insulated aluminum slats that coil without touching. They are the most expensive, and the only realistic consideration where the high-speed door is the building’s main external door.
Can it be your only door at night?
This is a question that most high-speed door content skips. Fabric doors aren’t security doors. They will stop drafts and dust and control who walks through during the day. But a committed person with a knife can go through it in a few seconds.
An external opening that needs to be locked at night requires a rigid spiral door with an appropriate locking system or a fabric door with a roller shutter behind it. The second option is more common sense and provides a better solution. Just don’t let your supplier sell you a fabric door as your perimeter.
High-Speed Doors and Night Security
Do they pay for themselves?
This can happen quickly. One UK article suggests that a well-specified secondary door can pay back in energy savings in as little as 18 months.
Treat that as best-case scenario. Payback depends how often the door cycles, how exposed the opening is, and what your energy costs are. An insulated cold store with 24/7 forklift traffic will give a much better return compared with an ambient store with 12 movements per hour. A good supplier will be able to give an example payback calculation based on your actual cycle counts and temperatures, not a ball park figure.
Safety
A door like this, that moves quickly around people and vehicles, requires a number of safety devices that are effective all of the time. These include light curtains and safety edges, as well as correct stopping and reversing devices. BS EN 13241 and BS EN 12453 outline the requirements, and regular servicing is how you maintain them that way.