The winter season can be pretty harsh on your automatic doors, as they’re interacting with a lot of cold air, slush, and road salt. But the coldest months are nearly behind us, and it’s the perfect time to do a little spring cleaning. This article tells you more about the impact the winter months could’ve had on your doors and how our Proactive Maintenance Plan can help whip them back into shape.
The Impact of Harsh Winters on Automatic Doors
Winter in the Midwest can be beautiful, but it’s hard on your automatic doors (especially in entryways) in a few different ways:
- Winter creates a lot of debris (like salt, dirt, and dead leaves), much of which ends up in the bottom tracks of your doors and interferes with their ability to move freely.
- The extremely cold air contracts the doors’ metal components, which makes them work harder to do their job.
- Cold air can change the constitution of the fluids that lubricate your doors. Specifically, they can thicken when chilled, causing everything to get a bit sluggish.
But the winter weather doesn’t just impact the doors’ hardware—it can also impact the doors’ electrical components. The colder temperatures can result in quite a bit of condensation, which makes it harder for your motion sensor to do its job. And then you have the matter of your power source. The extremely cold air might cause your electrical components to fail. And further, it can drain your back-up battery, if your system relies on one.
How Our Proactive Maintenance Program (PMP) Can Help
We’ve made a career out of serving customers in areas that experience all four seasons—including some pretty harsh winters. That means our doors are designed to operate at a high level, even during the coldest months. When we’re called out to do post-winter maintenance, more often than not we’re just talking about addressing a little wear-and-tear. Just like your laptop needs updates and your car needs oil changes, your automatic doors might need some attention come spring.
ADA’s Proactive Maintenance Program provides:
- Reduced Downtime: Maybe you’re in a high-pressure industry where every moment counts. Or maybe you’re just trying to make sure your business is always at its best. Either way, you’ll want to make sure that you optimize your automatic doors. Our Proactive Maintenance Program can help you do exactly that. We’ll stop by, clear away that winter debris, and give your doors a tune-up. That keeps the trains running on time, reduces downtime, and puts your best foot forward.
- Extended Life: Every single product has a natural lifespan. But you can help extend that lifespan by staying on top of the maintenance. If the cold weather affected your lubricating fluids, do they need to be replaced? If the slush melted in your bottom track, did anything rust over? Our AAADM certified technicians can help you answer all of those questions and take steps to resolve any issues. But only if they come out and give everything a once-over. Be sure to schedule that visit before the damage gets too severe.
- Controlled Access: We can help you control access to your facilities in many different ways, but all of them rely on various electrical components. And as you read earlier, winter can be hard on those components. So, now that the weather is starting to clear, where does everything stand? Are all the parts and pieces of your system working? What needs to be recalibrated? Our Proactive Maintenance team will come by and make sure everything’s firing on all cylinders. And that’s the only way to keep your restricted areas restricted.
- Increased Safety: Safety is our number-one priority, and we install our automatic doors with that in mind. They have sensors to make sure they’re not closing on or opening into anyone. Ideally, those features will still be up to par after the winter. But there’s only one way to be sure—have our technicians come out to take a look. At ADA, safety is always at the top of our list. Make sure it’s at the top of yours, too.
- Guaranteed Compliance: You always want to be in compliance with safety standards and all of the different entities that enforce those standards. Does OSHA think you’re running a safe workplace? Does your insurance company agree? Are your doors up to ANSI standards? The regulatory climate is nuanced. So, you won’t just be dealing with those two considerations; you’ll also need to comply with local standards. We can help with that. And our maintenance program makes sure your doors are up to snuff.
The winter season can be tough on everything, including your automatic doors. And now that the worst of it is over, it’s probably time for a little spring cleaning. Our Proactive Maintenance Program can keep everything running smoothly, extend the life of your doors, and increase safety. Reach out to ADA today to schedule an inspection and have us create a maintenance program based on your needs.