Stopped chasing high speed doors after a job at the St. Louis warehouse

I used to think faster was always better for elevator doors, especially on busy floors. But last month at a St. Louis distribution center, we had a rack and pinion setup with doors opening in 2.5 seconds. The limit switches kept failing every 3 weeks because the momentum was slamming them. I swapped in a standard 5 second door set from a 1990s Otis unit and it ran 8 months without a hiccup. The building manager even said the slower doors reduced false calls by half. Anyone else find that spec sheet numbers don't always win on site?

2 comments

2 Comments

julia_fisher2822d ago

Yeah, I had the exact same thing happen at a hospital in Chicago. They wanted these super fast doors for the main lobby and staff kept complaining about the noise and the constant breakdowns. We switched to a set of old Dover doors from the 80s and they ran smooth for over a year with zero issues. The speed specs look great on paper but they don't account for real world wear and tear or how people actually use the doors. Sometimes slow and steady wins the race, especially in high traffic spots. The maintenance guys were way happier too because they weren't out there every month swapping limit switches.

troy_owens22d ago

Man, the "slow and steady wins the race" thing is exactly it. I've seen the same thing with those supposedly high-speed doors in commercial kitchens and loading docks. The specs look amazing in the brochure, but after six months of constant opening and closing, the motors start whining and the sensors get flaky. We had a set of old Stanley doors from the 90s at a warehouse I worked with, and they were clunky but reliable as a hammer. Maintenance guys would just laugh at the new fancy stuff, saying they'd rather fix the old ones any day of the week. Your mileage may vary, but in my experience, simple and tough beats fast and fancy every time.