Automatic door operators Lagos: supplied and supported from South Africa
Automatic door operators Lagos projects are shaped by two things before anything else: salt and power. Get those right and the entrance lasts. Get them wrong and no amount of specification elsewhere will save it. We export the MC-125 and the MCW-100 into Nigeria and we install and commission them ourselves.
A note on geography first, because it matters for anyone budgeting a national rollout. Lagos is Nigeria’s commercial centre, not its capital; Abuja is the capital. Most automatic door operators Lagos enquiries we receive are for commercial buildings in Lagos precisely because that is where the commercial building happens.
Salt is the first design constraint
Lagos sits on the Atlantic. That single fact changes the specification of every automatic entrance in the city, and it is the thing most often ignored in a cheap quotation.
Salt-laden air does not attack an operator dramatically. It attacks fixings, brackets, the underside of the header and any exposed fastener, continuously, every day, whether the door is used or not. An entrance specified as though it were in an inland city will look fine for eighteen months and then start showing corrosion at exactly the points that are hardest to reach.
On automatic door operators Lagos specifications we treat corrosion protection as a starting requirement rather than an upgrade. We also ask a question that sounds pedantic and is not: how far is the entrance from the open air, and is it on the seaward elevation of the building. A lobby set deep behind a covered forecourt is a materially different environment from a street-facing entrance two kilometres from the water.
Power is the second, and it is the one that kills controllers
Commercial buildings in Lagos very commonly run on a mix of grid supply and generator, with transfer between them. That transfer is where automatic door operators Lagos installations get damaged.
An automatic door is a motor, a controller and a sensor loop. The controller is the fragile part, and it does not object to being switched off. It objects to the spikes and sags around an unclean changeover. Repeated exposure shortens its life quietly, and then it fails, and the failure looks random because nobody connected it to the generator.
So on automatic door operators Lagos projects we ask directly what the building’s power arrangement is, and we specify with that answer in hand rather than discovering it during commissioning. We will also tell you what the entrance should do during a changeover, because that is a decision to be made deliberately and not left to whatever the default happens to be.
The two operators we export to Nigeria
We export two units and only two, and on automatic door operators Lagos work that discipline is worth more than breadth. A narrow range means the spares that matter are actually held and our technicians know both units without a manual.
The MC-125 sliding door operator drives single and bi-parting sliding leaves and is what most automatic door operators Lagos enquiries end up specifying, for retail, banking halls, office lobbies and hotel entrances. In South Africa it starts at R27 590 excluding VAT.
The MCW-100 swing door operator handles swing leaves, and in Lagos its real value is refurbishment: making a sound existing door automatic without replacing the entrance. In South Africa it starts at R15 900 excluding VAT.
Both are South African prices and both are the operator alone. They are not the landed cost of automatic door operators Lagos projects and we will not publish that figure, because freight, duty and routing move and a stale number misleads whoever budgets against it. Cross-border work is quoted per project, in writing.
Both units are imported and assembled at our Laser Park facility in Johannesburg. We do not call ourselves a manufacturer of automatic doors. The 24-month warranty is on the operator and it travels with the operator into Nigeria.
We install, we do not just ship a crate
Every automatic door operators Lagos project includes our own installation and commissioning team. We are not willing to warrant an entrance fitted by somebody working from a manual and a photograph, and we would rather lose the enquiry than pretend otherwise.
Commissioning is where the opening speed, the hold-open time, the safety sensor fields and the reversal behaviour get set against that specific leaf and that specific traffic. On a humid coastal site there is a further step, which is confirming that the sensors behave correctly in heavy rain. Lagos has a serious wet season, and an activation sensor that triggers on driving rain produces an entrance that stands open in a storm.
What we are not responsible for in Nigeria
Plainly, because vagueness here is how clients get hurt. We do not hold Nigerian building approvals or Nigerian fire approvals. Where an entrance sits on an escape route, forms part of a fire strategy or has to satisfy a local accessibility requirement, that is your local consultant’s responsibility. We will give them every technical detail on the operator they ask for. We will not sign a compliance certificate for a jurisdiction we do not practise in, and you should treat any supplier who offers to with suspicion.
We also do not do roller shutter doors, and we do not supply, fit, retrofit or service door closers. Pedestrian automatic entrances are the whole of what we do.
Logistics, stated honestly
Automatic door operators Lagos projects move by sea or by air, and which one is right depends on the consignment and the programme rather than on a rule we can publish.
We will not put a lead time on this page. Cross-border timing depends on the route, the port, the consignment and the month, and a number published today is a number that misleads somebody in six months. What we will do is give you a realistic programme in the quotation, in writing, valid for a stated period, and tell you honestly which parts of it are inside our control and which are not.
The same applies to landed cost. We publish our South African operator prices openly because we can stand behind them. We do not publish freight, duty or landed figures for Nigeria because we would be guessing, and a guess in a budget is worse than no number at all.
Maintaining an entrance in Lagos after we leave
Our 24/7 breakdown line on 010 412 0062 is real and it is answered. It does not mean a technician in Lagos the same day. Our same-day call-out commitment is a Gauteng commitment and we will not blur that to make this page read better.
On automatic door operators Lagos projects we design for the distance instead. We agree a spares holding sized against that building’s exposure and traffic, so the parts most likely to be needed are already on site. On a coastal humid location we bias that holding toward fixings and the wear items that corrosion reaches first. We train the client’s own maintenance people during commissioning so somebody local can do routine work and first-line diagnosis, and we support them by phone and email.
For third-party equipment already in a Lagos building, we service GEZE, dormakaba, ASSA ABLOY, record and TORMAX systems. We are an independent service provider and we are not an agent, distributor or authorised representative of any of those companies.
Slide or swing for a Lagos opening
Most automatic door operators Lagos enquiries open by asking for a slide. It is often right and not always, and the deciding factor is usually structural.
A slide needs somewhere for the leaf to park, a header that can carry the operator and the leaf weight, and a clean floor line. In refurbishment work the header is very often the constraint that decides the whole project. A swing needs clear arc and nobody standing in it, which makes us cautious on busy retail thresholds, but it is the right answer where a sound existing door simply has to become automatic.
There is a Lagos-specific tilt worth knowing. A slide exposes more moving parts to the environment than a swing does, and in a salt-laden coastal atmosphere that difference compounds over five years. It occasionally moves a marginal decision toward the swing where an inland project would have gone the other way.
Service intervals in a corrosive environment
Automatic door operators Lagos service intervals are set by cycles and by environment, and on the coast the environment does more work than most people expect.
Inland, the interval is mostly a wear calculation. In Lagos it is a wear calculation plus a corrosion inspection, and the second one matters more in year three than the first. Fixings, brackets and fasteners get checked as a matter of course, because those are what fail first and they fail in places nobody looks at until the leaf drops.
We set the interval per entrance at commissioning, write it down together with the commissioning settings, and revisit it once we have seen how that particular door behaves. A schedule that never changes after year one was never based on the building.
The sectors we quote into
Automatic door operators Lagos enquiries reach us mainly from banking, retail, hospitality and commercial office, and each changes the answer.
Banking halls care about controlled access and predictable, dignified operation. Retail is high cycle, with grit and water tracked in from outside and an entrance that cannot be out of service on a trading day. Hospitality cares about quiet running and appearance more than raw throughput. Commercial office sits in the middle with moderate cycles and a controlled interior.
The operator may well be the same MC-125 in all four. The duty class, the sensor arrangement, the safety settings and the service interval will not be, and we would rather ask which you are than quote a generic entrance.
Getting a Lagos quotation right first time
An automatic door operators Lagos quotation starts with the opening, not the operator. Most specification errors in Nigerian enquiries come from ordering against a door width when the number that decides the unit is leaf weight.
Send the structural opening in millimetres, the leaf weight and material, the header depth available, the floor condition across the threshold and one photograph. Then the two Lagos-specific answers: how exposed the entrance is to open air and salt, and what the power arrangement is including whether the building transfers to generator. Add a rough figure for openings per day, because cycle count sets the duty class and the duty class sets the service interval.
Anything less and we come back with questions, which costs a week each time. Complete automatic door operators Lagos enquiries get a real number quickly.
Refurbishment versus new build
Automatic door operators Lagos work splits between new build and refurbishment and the two run differently.
On new build we can influence the opening before it is poured, which is the cheapest moment to fix anything. Header depth, parking space for the leaf and a clean floor line cost nothing at design stage and a great deal afterwards. On refurbishment we take the building as we find it, which is where the MCW-100 earns its keep and where a survey stops being optional.
Coastal refurbishment carries one extra risk worth naming. Existing fixings in a salt environment are frequently in worse condition than they look, and an operator is only as sound as what it is bolted to. On automatic door operators Lagos refurbishments we check the substrate before we quote the unit, because fitting a good operator to corroded fixings is a failure waiting to happen.
Why a narrow product range helps you at distance
A two-unit range reads like a limitation until you are two thousand kilometres from the workshop with a fault.
A supplier carrying fifteen operator families cannot hold deep spares for any of them and cannot have technicians who know each one thoroughly. On automatic door operators Lagos projects that becomes the client’s problem, not theirs. A narrow range means the spares that matter are actually held, the fault described on the phone is one we have seen many times, and the part we tell you to fit is one we can describe precisely.
Automatic door operators Lagos: the short version
We export two units into Nigeria, the MC-125 for sliding leaves and the MCW-100 for swing leaves, both imported and assembled at Laser Park in Johannesburg.
Every automatic door operators Lagos project includes our own installation and commissioning team. We quote per project in writing and publish no landed price, freight figure or lead time, because those move. The 24-month operator warranty travels into Nigeria; same-day attendance does not, and remains a Gauteng commitment.
We hold no Nigerian building or fire approvals. Salt and power are the two constraints that decide an automatic door operators Lagos specification, and we design the maintenance around the distance with an agreed spares holding and your own team trained at handover.
Who does what: Coetz Glazing and MC Automations
These are two businesses under the same ownership and it is worth being clear about which one you need, because it decides who you should be talking to.
Coetz Glazing supplies. If your question is about buying automatic door equipment for Lagos and what it costs to procure, Coetz covers that market at country level in its automatic doors Nigeria guide.
MC Automations installs. This page is the installation and commissioning side. If your question is which operator suits your opening, who fits it, who commissions the safety systems and who maintains it afterwards, that is automatic door operators Lagos work and it is us.
Most projects need both, which is why we quote them as one piece of work rather than sending you between two companies.
Frequently asked
Is Lagos the capital of Nigeria?
No. Abuja is the capital; Lagos is the commercial centre. We quote automatic door operators Lagos projects and Abuja projects both, but the great majority of our Nigerian enquiries are for Lagos buildings because that is where the commercial development is.
Do I really need a corrosion specification?
In Lagos, almost certainly yes. It is a coastal city and salt-laden air attacks fixings and brackets continuously. The relevant questions are how exposed the entrance is and whether it faces the weather, and a supplier who does not ask those is quoting you an inland door.
Will generator changeover damage the door?
It can, over time. The controller is the vulnerable component and repeated unclean transfers shorten its life quietly. Tell us the building’s power arrangement up front and we specify for it rather than finding out during commissioning.
What will it cost landed in Lagos?
We will not publish that. Freight, duty and routing change and a stale figure misleads whoever budgets against it. Our South African operator prices are open, R27 590 excluding VAT for the MC-125 and R15 900 for the MCW-100, and every Nigerian project is quoted in writing against your actual opening.
Who services it once you have flown home?
Ideally your own facilities team, trained by us at handover and working from a spares holding biased toward corrosion wear items. We back them on 010 412 0062. We also service GEZE, dormakaba, ASSA ABLOY, record and TORMAX equipment already in the building, independently and not as anyone’s agent.
Talk to us about a Lagos entrance
Send the leaf weight, the structural opening, a photograph of what is there now, how exposed the entrance is to the open air, and what the building’s power arrangement is. That is enough for a real answer rather than a brochure answer.
Call 010 412 0062 or use the request a quote form. Our automatic doors Africa page covers how cross-border projects run, and taking over other brands explains how we adopt equipment we did not install. Guidance on powered pedestrian doors is published by the South African Bureau of Standards.