Commercial work is a different specification from residential work, and the vocabulary is different too: in most of the trade these are overhead doors, and the phrase covers several products that do the same job in different buildings.
| Sectional overhead | Rolling steel | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Steel sections on tracks, counterbalanced by a torsion spring | A curtain of interlocking slats coiling onto a barrel above the opening |
| Where the door goes | Back along the ceiling | Onto the barrel, with nothing running back |
| Choose it when | The bay seals and insulates to a specification, and a driver needs vision panels | There is no room overhead, the opening is very wide, or the building wants a solid steel curtain |
| Standard on | A warehouse bay, a service garage, a fire hall | Openings where a rolling grille can leave a shopfront visible after hours |
The same principle as a house door, built heavier. Sections of insulated or non-insulated steel, running on tracks, counterbalanced by a torsion spring. This is the standard for a warehouse bay, a service garage or a fire hall, because it seals reasonably well, insulates if you specify it to, and can be fitted with vision panels so a driver can see the yard.
A curtain of interlocking steel slats that coils onto a barrel above the opening rather than running back along the ceiling. It is the answer when there is no room overhead for tracks, when the opening is very wide, or when the building needs the security of a solid steel curtain. Rolling grilles do the same thing in an open lattice where you want the shopfront visible after hours.
A residential door might run four cycles a day. A loading bay can run forty, and a busy service bay more than that. Springs are rated in cycles, and a commercial door is specified with a spring pack sized to how often that opening actually moves. Ordering a residential-cycle spring for a bay that runs all day is the single most common reason a new commercial door is back on a service call inside two years.
Commercial installations carry more than a photo eye. A reversing safety edge along the bottom of the door, a three-button wall station, key switches, pull cords, radio controls and loop detectors, all driven by a commercial operator rather than a residential opener, are all normal, and which of them a building needs depends on how the door is used and who is near it when it moves.
A rolling steel door or shutter that closes an opening in a fire separation counts as a closure under Ontario's Fire Code. Its fusible links and heat- or smoke-actuated devices have to be kept undamaged and free of paint and dirt, and its guides, bearings and stay rolls clean and lubricated. The code also has a door in a fire separation inspected monthly, with the opening kept clear of anything likely to interfere with it.
We survey the opening, the headroom and the way the bay is actually used before specifying anything, because a door that fits the hole and not the traffic will fail on the traffic.
Every one of these is measured on your opening before it is quoted. Most people settle the shape first and the model number after.
G-5000
The standard bay door: polyurethane injected between two steel skins, a grooved face, one and three quarter inches thick. Thinner and thicker builds exist at R-12 and R-18, and choosing between them is a question about whether the building is heated.
G-4400
An aluminium frame glazed across the whole face, for a showroom or a service bay the street should be able to see into. It is not insulated, and the glass is chosen per opening from more than twenty types, tempered or not.
Photographs are Garaga’s, the manufacturer whose doors we install. They show the models, not jobs we have completed. Colours shift on a screen, and headroom, backroom and the track decide which of these will physically fit an opening, so everything here is where a measurement starts.
Short answers on what usually breaks, what a visit involves and what it costs to put right.
Heavier gauge steel, heavier tracks and hardware, springs rated for many more cycles, and usually a different operator. A commercial door is engineered around how often it moves and what happens if it comes down on something, rather than around how it looks from the street.
Insulated slat curtains exist, and so do sandwich-slat doors, but a rolling door will generally not match an insulated sectional door for thermal performance because of the way the curtain seals at the jambs and the coil. If the bay is heated, that trade-off is worth having on the table before the order goes in.
On cycle count rather than on the calendar. A door running dozens of cycles a day wants a planned inspection of springs, cables, rollers, bearings and the safety edge on a much shorter interval than one that opens twice a day, and catching a fraying cable at an inspection is far cheaper than catching it when it lets go.
Every service the branch nearest you can send a van for.
Broken springs, cables, rollers, tracks, sensors, trims and any garage door opener problem. Fast, professional service when you need it.
Broken garage door springs? We replace torsion and extension springs safely and professionally to get your garage door working properly again.
The door starts down and reverses, or the opener light blinks and will not close. What the photo eyes are telling you, and when it is only alignment.
Garage door off track or not moving properly? Protech can safely realign the door, repair damaged tracks, replace rollers and get it running smoothly again.
Springs, cables, drums, rollers, hinges, brackets, seals and opener parts. What is on the truck, what is matched to the door, and what is not a DIY part.
A door that will not move, or stops halfway. The check order that tells you whether it is the opener, the springs, the track or ice, before anyone touches it.
Call (613) 845-9950 at any hour, or email info@protechgarage.ca for a new-door quote with no rush.
