Picture the manager of a chemist off Hessle Road. The sliding door has started hesitating before it opens, just a beat, and the staff have got used to it. Nobody’s reported it because nobody’s been hurt. It’s the kind of fault that gets a shrug until a customer with a pushchair or a walking frame gets caught by the leaf.
Here’s the awkward truth from the industry guidance. There is no fixed legal service interval for an automatic door. What there is, is a duty: PUWER 1998 says work equipment has to be kept in efficient working order, the Workplace Regulations 1992 say doors must be suitably maintained, and the Health and Safety at Work Act sits over the top. BS EN 16005, the standard for power-operated pedestrian doors, expects the servicing to be done by a competent person at intervals set by a risk assessment.
In practice, most guidance suggests a domestic door once a year, a light commercial door every six months, and a busy entrance, such as a shop on Prospect Street, a surgery or a college, quarterly. A proper service isn’t a squirt of WD-40. We check sensor alignment and range, test closing force and speed against the standard, look at the belt, rollers and track, check fixings and glass retention, and test the battery backup and manual release. Where the door is linked to the fire alarm, we test that too.
And there’s the Equality Act angle. A door that sticks, or won’t open for someone with a mobility aid, is an access failure as much as a nuisance. Reactive repairs cost more as well; emergency call-outs, a shut entrance and sometimes a voided warranty make a planned visit look cheap.
If nobody can tell you when your automatic doors were last serviced, ring Gem Automatic Doors on 01482 506 559 or take a look at gemautomaticdoors.com/. We cover Hull, York and Grimsby, and we’ll book a free on-site survey so you know where you stand.