Why maintenance is more than just keeping your doors functional

Did you know that maintaining and servicing your industrial doors is an essential health and safety requirement? Failure to maintain your doors could put you in breach of government legislation. And make you liable in the case of an incident?

We’ve applied our extensive door system knowledge to provide you with some tips around door maintenance.

Door maintenance is a regulatory requirement

Door maintenance whether roller shutters or high-speed doors, is a regulatory requirement as set out by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 – Regulation 5. The maintenance of workplace equipment, devices and systems applies to all types of industrial doors whether manual or electrical operation and dictates that the door should be kept free from faults – with defects being rectified immediately.

Why is door maintenance important?

Maintaining your door not only ensure you are compliant to regulations, it also improves their life expectancy, making it more cost effective. The average life expectancy of a Hart door is around 20 years, depending on the usage and conditions on site.

Speedor high speed door installed 1989

As an example the door above was installed 31 years ago in 1989. Although dirty it is still going strong with its original control panel! (if you look closely you can see the test date April 1989)

There are 3 important messages here:

1) Buy quality certified and compliant products as set out in the Machinery Directive
2) Make sure your door systems are designed for the job
3) Ensure a regular service is carried out as detailed below

There is guidance that you should follow when it comes to maintaining and keeping accounts of your doors.

1. Maintenance should be carried out at suitable intervals

We recommend carrying out regular maintenance at least once every 12 months, but the following factors should be considered to determine the exact required frequency:

• The intensity of use
• The operational environment e.g. temperature, weathering, corrosion
• User knowledge
• The risk to health and safety from failure or malfunction
• Effective maintenance not only ensures you are adhering to PUWER requirements, it also helps to meet business objectives, such as improved productivity by minimising down time due to faults and reduced environmental impact through building temperature control.

Book a visit now to determine how often you should be servicing your doors.

2. Maintenance work should only be undertaken by competent personnel

Maintenance work should only be undertaken by those who have been provided with sufficient information, instruction and training (PUWER regulations 8 and 9). If you do not have someone within your organisation who is qualified to perform maintenance and checks on your doors, this is a service our professional engineers can support you with. Keep reading to learn about how we’ve adapted site visits in response to Covid-19.

3. Keep a record of any checks or maintenance carried out and a record of any faults

When it comes to the maintenance of your doors and equipment, you also need to ensure that you keep a record of any checks or maintenance carried out and a record of any faults. This is so that you are able to provide evidence of your compliance with the regulations. You can rest assured that if you have a service carried out by one of our engineers, you will be emailed a copy of the report.

Our engineers have a rigorous checklist that they follow when testing your doors. We do not use subcontractors so all of our engineers are competent door maintenance specialists and have a comprehensive knowledge of door operations – we can also service doors that aren’t part of the Hart Door Systems range.

Ready to book your service with Hart Door Systems?

You can book here as either a new or existing customer. Or you may want to talk to us about setting up a Service Contract – that way we can keep a record of your service visits and contact you when it’s time for a check, relieving your team of that admin burden.