Winter is a particularly rough time for companies using industrial doors. During the summer, you can possibly afford for them to be open on a slightly more regular basis. Maybe you’ve not got straight onto that necessary fix, as the warmer months have masked the issue.
But when winter comes, that’s when we notice how important a fully operational door is to the business.
Over the last 2 years we’ve all had to cope with fluctuating energy prices amidst the uncertainty surrounding the war in the Ukraine. These energy prices have seen many a business struggle with rising costs and unfortunately many have been forced into administration.
Now look at your door again and ask yourself this simple question…”Is that costing us money and can we afford it to continue to do so?”
There are easy solutions of course. Keep your doors well maintained and always make the best efforts to keep them closed when not in use. This helps hold the heat in and keeps that wasted energy to a minimum.
Also, consider your choice of door for your purposes. PVC strips for instance are constantly moving with air and don’t provide a solid barrier from exterior to interior. Instead, PVC strips should be considered as supporting products as in the right environment, they are incredibly useful items that can help in conjunction with other products, reduce heat loss.
Manually operated doors with hand chain operations, are often left open as the operator can’t be bothered to close the door as it loses them time on their task. Even some electric doors can be slow in their operation, taking 30-40 seconds to open and close. This just adds to the greater opportunity for heat to escape.
There are products on the market that do their day job as well as helping to protect your energy investments. High Speed doors are exceptional for example, because as the name suggests, they work at a high speed! They open fast, they close fast. That’s less time with a gaping wound in your building, spewing heat into the cold air! When you combine a high speed door with either PVC strips or the incredibly innovative ArrowAir Enershield Air Barrier, (check out our great video to see how this amazing piece of kit works) you’re giving yourself the very best opportunity to keep the heat where it needs to be.
Let’s look at a very typical example to illustrate the issue. These are fairly broad assumptions and should not be considered 100% accurate, but they are a very good indicator based on our involvement with our customers and what we see regularly.
- Picture a warehouse with one Roller Shutter door measuring in at a standard 4mtr x 4.6mtr that operates roughly 260 days a year. There’s two shifts across a 24 hour period with an expected cycle run of 20 times per shift. That means the door could be open up to 360 mins every day. That’s 6 hours across a 24 hour period where the door is open.
- Now multiply that 6 hours by the operating days during the winter months, let’s say November through to March to be conservative and the loss in money terms, paying those energy bills, is simply frightening.
When we’re in our own homes, we close doors and windows almost immediately to keep the heat in…why should our businesses be any different?
It’s imperative to have a strong door operating regime that all staff religiously adhere to. No matter how frustrating it may be, always close the door when you have finished your initial journey. Don’t leave it open whilst you load the forklift for example!
As a way to help our customers understand the typical losses being encountered during the winter months, we’ve been rolling out our free energy survey service across the country. We can provide calculations and solutions to help our customers understand the potential gains that could be made with a properly operating solution. We will come to your premises and with you, go through the typical costings based on information you provide and show you a fully comprehensive report that is easy to understand and can be used to provide a road map to being more efficient.
If you would like to take advantage of this completely free service, please contact our National Network by visiting arrow-industrial.co.uk or reach out via our LinkedIn page.
There is a solution, we can help you find it.
