The Cost of Gaps around your Doorways. Our Top 3 Solutions

Have you ever stood out the front of your cool room and wondered how you can reduce the electricity bill? Are you stressing about an upcoming audit, or sighing at the bill for a damaged roller door? If factors like low-maintenance, temperature, and hygiene control are top of mind for your operation, then we’re here to help you understand how you can save money and improve temperature efficiency with High Speed Doors and Dock Loading solutions. So how do we begin…? Although they may seem relatively unimportant, doors play a much larger role in operation than mere access to your building. A durable, quality and appropriate product can be the point of difference between a high expense, ineffective workflow, and an efficient, low maintenance operation. High-speed, self-repairing flexible doors are designed to withstand impact, and built to perform tirelessly over hundreds of thousands of cycles. Operating at speeds of up to 2.5 m/s, these doors are fast enough and smart enough to outwit even the worst of demon forklift drivers!

Now to get down to brass tacks, how much are your gaps and open doorways, truly costing you?

To be fair, there are multiple factors involved in this but temperature control, hygiene, and maintenance are areas it is vital for you to consider so here are our top 3 solutions.

Temperature control is a big goal for most operations, from General Manufacturing to the Food & Beverage sector. A doorway containing a standard roller shutter with no insulation properties will do little to beat the heat in summer, and combat the cold in winter and this may significantly impact how well your product is stored and potentially lead to huge costs in product damage. Then on top of that, you’ll likely be racking up massive energy costs due to the energy loss, often visible in the amount of ice build-up.  However, there is a wide range of high speed doors to choose from to combat this, including those with superior insulation properties, commonly used in Coolrooms and freezers, such as our Ulti Frigo 2, Fastrax FR, or Ulti Flex.

As for hygiene, in the Food and Beverage industry, stringent hygiene specifications are rigidly adhered to, for reducing contamination and the dissemination of poisonous foods, and ensuring all products that enter the market are safe for consumption. So if you’ve got any gaps, there is a huge opportunity for pests and vermin, carrying harmful bacteria, to make their way in and wreck havoc. Furthermore, temperature sensitive foods, such as meat, dairy products, protein-rich foods, fresh fruit and vegetables and more, are capable of supporting growth of harmful and poisonous bacteria, if not stored and maintained properly. Again, product damage from this and the associated costs can be absolutely enormous, let alone the impact it would also have on your brand reputation. Our high speed door range, including doors specific to high hygiene areas such as the Ulti Roll Food, can help alleviate and prevent this contamination.

And finally, maintenance can’t be overlooked, no matter how time-consuming it may appear to be. With an inflexible doorway application, such as a standard roller shutter, or roller door with solid windbars, impact from forklift traffic can be a big problem. Forklift impact is almost inevitable, and if your doors aren’t able to take the impact, this will leave your door out of action, causing significant energy loss and more. Hence, a doorway solution that is both flexible and low-maintenance can have a massive impact on your overall warehouse maintenance and energy costs. That’s not to say these doors don’t require regular maintenance though. Investing in a Preventative Maintenance program will also extend the life of your door and reduce the chance of it breaking down.

But that’s just your doorways. What about your loading docks?

Well, all of the above still applies. In essence, loading docks are large holes in your facility wall. If you think about it, with a truck lined up and the door open, these dock openings present an enormous opportunity for bad things to enter your facility – think bugs, dust, wind, rain and rodents – and good things, like expensive heating and cooling energy, to escape. Weather-related product damage and contamination, employee comfort and safety, facility hygiene and cleanliness, air quality, maintenance of product quality characteristics and passing inspections are all concerns related to protecting and controlling the environment at the loading dock.

So all up, your gaps, open doorways and loading docks, if not fitted with appropriate products, could be racking up huge expenses without you hardly realising which drain the money is going down. Anything a company can do to seal up these holes in the wall, ensuring a complete seal at every door, can have an immediate positive effect. That’s why we’re here to help.

Get in touch with our expert and friendly team today to find out how you can beat these costs and potentially save thousands of dollars!