Commercial garage door openers in Ottawa

An operator on an Ottawa loading door has two jobs a catalogue does not list. It has to keep working through weather that glues the door to its frame, and it has to let the door move when the power is off. The Ottawa branch supplies, installs and services jackshaft, trolley and hoist operators from 46 Grenfell Crescent Unit A in Nepean. What each type drives, and why duty cycle is the first number in the specification, is on the commercial openers page.

Freezing rain and the overload

Environment Canada's 1991 to 2020 normals for the Ottawa airport count 14.0 days a year with freezing rain or drizzle. On those mornings ice fills the guides of a rolling door and the joints of a sectional one, and an operator asked to move the door works against the ice as well as the door. A well-set operator stops and trips its overload rather than tearing something, and a tripped overload on an icy morning is a warning rather than a fault.

Fix it at the door. Free the curtain or the sections, clear the guides and the bottom bar, and only then reset the operator. Turning the force or the overload up to push through ice gets the door open once and leaves the reversing edge slower to protect whoever is under it the rest of the winter.

Controls that suit a winter yard

The same station records 117.9 days a year with snow on the ground, and that changes which controls work. Photo eyes at the jambs get the same snow and salt as a house door, lower down and harder used. Loop detectors cut into the slab of the approach keep sensing a vehicle under packed snow, which is why they suit an Ottawa yard where the door must not come down on a truck. Radio controls let a driver open the bay from the cab instead of climbing down onto ice to press a station on the wall, and a key switch keeps the door for staff only when the building is shut.

When the grid is down

Every commercial operator has a manual way to move the door: a chain hoist on most rolling doors, a hand chain or a disconnect on jackshaft and trolley units. After the derecho of 21 May 2022 some Hydro Ottawa customers waited nearly two weeks for power. Find the hoist chain on each door now, check it moves, and make sure the people who open the building know whether the operator has to be switched off at its disconnect before the chain will turn.

Rural Ottawa, farm shops and works yards

The City of Ottawa takes in a rural area of about 2,192 square kilometres with 26 villages, and the commercial doors there are on farm shops, equipment sheds and works yards rather than loading docks. Those buildings are often unheated, so the operator sits at the outside temperature all winter, and its drive, brake and limits are what the pre-winter visit is for. A long run from the house panel to a shed makes the power supply the first thing to check, and the Electrical Safety Authority is clear that bringing power to it is work for a Licensed Electrical Contractor. The branch covers the towns past the city too, garage door repair in Carleton Place and garage door repair in Rockland among them.

Service in Ottawa

Operators here are serviced on cycle count, and the pre-winter visit is the one that pays: limits and brake checked, chain or drive lubricated for the cold, the reversing edge and the eyes tested. For a bay that will not close at the end of a shift, call (613) 845-9950 at any hour. For a new operator, email info@protechgarage.ca with the door type and size, the cycles a day and the power available at the bay. The door itself is on commercial doors in Ottawa.