Maintenance Packages.

Transcript.

Hi, my name's Sean Falkinder, and welcome to Spec & Fix Locking Solutions.

Our door maintenance program is a must for any building owners. A well-maintained door set will ensure the lifetime is prolonged by applying a regular routine. If you don't currently have a program in place, it's important to remember that fire doors are not any ordinary doors, these are life-safety products that are going to protect us in the invent of a fire, so why not make sure they're working as efficiently as they should be?

From our ironmongery background, the GAI has given us a good grounding into ensuring nothing is ever missed. When specifying, we are taught from day one to hang the door, close the door, lock the door, furnish the door and trim the door. Taking this model into the maintenance of doors, we've applied the exact same method and created a 20-point checklist for our engineers to take care of your doors.

From a hinge perspective our engineers will ensure that there is a consistent gap all the way around the door, particularly on a fire door. A fire door should have a gap of no more than three millimetres all the way around, and the reason for this is that

in the event of a fire, the intumescent strips will need to expand and cloak any gap between the door and frame to create a compartmentation, to deny any transfer of fire passing through. When happy, the hinges will be lubricated in line with the manufacturer's recommendations.

Next, we're going to look at closing the door. So first of all, if the door is a fire door, the door control will be checked to see if its suitable, fire tested and also compliant in its fitted configuration. Believe it or not, a door closer can be fitted in three configurations: figure 1 with the body on the door, figure 61 with the body on the frame, or figure 66 with a parallel arm bracket. Please be careful, not all manufacturers test in every configuration; so even though you may believe it's fire tested, it may only be fire tested in figure 1. Also another thing to be mindful of, is that when we fit in figure 66 we lose a tremendous amount of power from the unit, and if it falls under power size three - it's an instant fail on a fire door.

Our maintenance will not only check the unit, but we will also make the fine-tune adjustments to that closer we have acquired. The more advanced the unit is, the more features it may have. As a standard all door controls will have a latching action and a closing speed.

Additional features may be:

Adjustable power - for spring tension based on a door's weight and size
Backcheck - to regulate the oil and effectively bring it to a stop when flung open. This will protect passes by and also walls.
Delayed action - there is a great need for this within hospitals where you need a few seconds delayed, just to push through the wheelchairs or beds before it starts closing. The final feature available on a mechanical door closer is;
mechanical hold open - this can be utilized to fit in a special arm on some units not all units, however be careful, this is a big no-no on a fire door. As mentioned previously, the job of a fire door is to close and in the event of a fire, it almost creates a wall. Now, if the door is mechanically held open that is not going to happen. If you're wanting it to be held open for any reason, we would always recommend an electromagnetic door controller is interfaced with a fire alarm, that way when the fire alarm trips or activates, it allows the door to close.

let's take a little look at a door closer where it is set up incorrectly. It's the correct unit for the job, as in the right power size. It's fitted absolutely perfect, but it's just adjusted incorrectly. Now let's see what actions that we take within our maintenance program to get this closing as it should.

Here you can see a union retro-v door closer with backcheck facility. As the backcheck has been set up incorrectly, the door is not restricted from burying itself into the wall when opened.

Also the closing speed and the latching action is set up inefficiently, causing the door to slam very aggressively into the frame.

Once the adjustments have been made, the backcheck is inspected to ensure the door is not able to cause damage when the door is pulled open with force.

The adjustments were then made on the closing and the latching. As a rule of thumb, we should be looking for five seconds of closing and then allowing the latch to kiss into the frame.

The mortice lock and cylinder will be checked for operation, tightened and lubricated. Market leader ASSA, recommends cylinders should be lubricated at least twice per annum. One of the main issues that we see on site, believe it or not, is missing screws from door furniture. Now I know that sounds trivial and it sounds very small however I’ve seen it snowball into big issues and resulting in people being locked in rooms.

If we remember that most commercial doors will be fire doors, so the chances are, they will have a door control of some way or another. Now, a door control will only give back what you put in, so if you imagine how much force is needed to close the door now think of how much force you're putting on the door when you're opening it. Now imagine that's all going through one screw. It's absolutely imperative that we get these doors maintained and we get them fixed up in line with what the manufacturer recommends and what they tested with.

Trimming the door is such a small part of what we do, that often it's one of the forgotten or simply done wrong things. From a legislation point of view, non-mortise products are less critical - such as: door stops hat and coat hooks etc. However, signage and intumescent seals play a huge part in conformity and performance, all of which we have the technical knowledge to put you right.

When packaged all together, we will ensure that all doors are left working efficiently. Any that or not, we will provide a report as to why and make a recommendation on how you upgrade the performance and compliance.

Thank you for taking the time to watch this short video, hope you found something of use. As always if you'd like to get in touch, my name is Sean Falkinder from Spec & Fix Locking Solutions. Reminding you always, that if it's on a door we've got you covered.