Building owners and facilities managers generally all have service contract agreements with the major services of their buildings, such as fire alarm, burglar alarm and access control systems.
But why not doors? They are not important, they get used every day, they just seem to work and rarely have a problem.
Interestingly most of the systems, fire, burglar and access control need doors to work correctly as they are interfaced and sometimes directly connected to them.
From a compliance point of view automatic doors, manual doors and fire escapes should be maintained, tested and documented generally every 6 months or at least once per year.
This should include a specific schedule of works to carry out for each different door type which is detailed within the service agreement and the correct amount of time and resources allocated to ensure your doors are safe, reliable and reducing overall costs. At BH Doors, we have used our experience, the manufacturers service specifications and legislation compliance to adopt these procedures for every customer and service contract we offer. The manufacturers may specify when service parts are replaced due to the amount of operations, so you may need to increase the amount of service visits and replacement of parts to ensure the safe and continued operation.
For automatic doors as an example the minimum for compliance to BSEN16005 and BS7036 2014 is once per year and a risk assessment checklist document issued.
But for compliance to BS9999, fire escapes should be serviced and inspected every 6 months. This may also be a stipulation of your building insurance, your lease agreement or part of your Fire Risk Assessment for your fire exits to be maintained.
Here is an example:
“I cannot set my alarm, so I will call an alarm engineer out”.
The engineer arrives on site and looks at the panel, door 4 not set. Goes to the door and sees that it will not close and align the sensor correctly. “You need a door company as there is nothing I can do, it’s a door problem”
So, you end up removing that door from the alarm system to allow you to set the alarm, but now that door is not protected. You may now look on the internet for a door company who could help you quickly.
“I cannot close my door and set my alarm, so I will call a door engineer out”
The engineer arrives on site, goes to the door, they see that the door is out of alignment and adjusts it, the door closes and now you can set your alarm. “That was a simple adjustment that would have been picked up and adjusted during a service, maybe you should look at getting your doors serviced?”
But you have paid for 2 emergency call outs from 2 different companies, had the frustration of leaving your building not fully alarmed, waisted time and this could potentially happen to all your doors in your building.
BH Doors can help, we offer service contract agreements on all types of commercial doors including automatic, manual, aluminium, timber, steel, glass and fire escapes.
Preventative maintenance servicing reduces the failure of equipment. This is backed up with the level of service our customers require as we understand that when a door fails it affects your business.
Our ethos is that we care about our customers, have pride in the work we carry out and be accountable at all times. This is why we understand that anybody in a position of ensuring that a building functions correctly and works to a budget requires:
- Fixed costs
- Minor repairs included
- Pre-planned service visits
- Same or next day response to emergency call outs
- Qualified and competent engineers
- Minimised disruption during working
- Health and safety compliant designating safe working area
- Risk assessments and safe working practices
- Documentation for records
- Conditional reports of equipment for planning future budgets
- Prior warning of end of life / obsolete equipment with solutions for replacement
- Accountability of communication, workmanship and value for money.
