A guide to DIY industrial door maintenance and servicing

Maintaining your industrial doors is absolutely essential, but it’s often tricky to know exactly what needs doing, when, and whether or not you can do it yourself or need to get the experts in. Door maintenance will ensure your industrial doors are in perfect condition, continually comply with all health and safety regulations, and are safe and easy to use.

How often do my industrial doors need servicing?

The frequency of which your doors need servicing depends greatly on the manner in which they are used, and how much wear and tear they receive. As a rough guide you can judge how often your doors need servicing based on the number of cycles they go through per day:

• For 1–10 cycles, service your doors every twelve months
• For 10-15 cycles, service your doors every six months
• For 15-30 cycles, service your doors every four months
• For 30-45 cycles, service your doors every three months
• For anything over 45 cycles, service your doors every two months.

Industrial doors that are specially designed to endure extremely high frequency use are a little different, and will need to be calculated based on the guidelines provided by your engineer when the door was installed.

There is a certain degree of DIY maintenance that you can safely conduct…

Daily tasks:

• Check for visible damage
• Ensure the door does not require excessive force to open
• Check that all accessible elements of the door are clean, and dust-free
• Check that bottom tracks do not have any debris obstructing them and are cleaned regularly
• Ensure you’re completely aware of the door’s operating instructions and safety guidelines
• Make sure the door doesn’t make any strange noises during operation.

By performing these checks and catching things early you will avoid larger problems developing and ensure your doors are always safe and in perfect working order.

In addition to your DIY checks you should have a qualified industrial door engineer perform the following routine maintenance checks on a regular basis:

• Ensure fixing bolts, screws, and bolts are nice and tight
• Give the faces of the doors a general clean
• Remove excess grease from the tracks
• Check the operation of shoot bolts, locks, chains, and hand chain wheels
• Clean hand chains and hand wheels – it’s important these are not greased or oiled.

For more information on industrial doors, contact us today!