How automatic doors for disabled access are planned in South Africa: swing or sliding, push plates and sensors, low-energy operation, load shedding and SANS 10400 Part S.
What Size Automatic Door Operator Do I Need?
Choosing an automatic door operator is a sizing exercise, not a shopping decision. Four numbers decide it, and getting one of them wrong produces an entrance that works on the day and disappoints for years.
This is how we size an automatic door operator to an opening, what the two units in our range cover, and what an undersized drive actually does to a building.
The four numbers that size an automatic door operator
Clear opening width comes first, and it is where most enquiries go wrong. The structural opening in the wall and the clear opening people walk through are different measurements — the frame, the parked leaf and the tracks all take from it. Quote us the structural size and we will confirm the clear one; quote us a clear size that is actually structural and the entrance will be narrower than you expected.
Leaf weight rises faster than people expect. Glass thickness, lamination and frame section all add, and a modest increase in size can push a leaf into a different bracket entirely. This is the figure worth being precise about, because an automatic door operator is specified against it directly.
Configuration changes the arithmetic. A bi-parting entrance splits the travel between two leaves, so each moves half the distance in the same time. A telescopic configuration stacks two leaves per side, clearing more opening where there is no wall to park into.
Cycle expectation is the one that never appears on a drawing. A retail entrance and an office side door can be identical in size and completely different in duty, and duty is what determines whether the drive is comfortable or working at its limit every day.
Which automatic door operator our range covers
The MC-125 drives sliding entrances from 1450 mm to 5000 mm of clear opening with leaves to 150 kg, in single, bi-parting or telescopic configurations. The MCW-100 automates swing doors to 150 kg and 1200 mm wide, adjustable from 60 to 110 degrees, on new or existing leaves.
Both are imported and assembled at our Laser Park facility in Johannesburg, and both are tested to one million cycles. Assembling locally is also why spares sit on a shelf here rather than arriving weeks later, which matters more to a building than any specification on a data sheet.
What an undersized automatic door operator does
An undersized automatic door operator rarely announces itself. The entrance works at handover and then quietly costs you.
A drive running at full load on every cycle wears its belt and carriage faster than one with headroom. It opens more slowly, which means the door stands open longer and the building loses more conditioned air — a real cost in a large volume. On exposed or coastal entrances it struggles against wind pressure, and it can read that extra load as an obstruction and stop, which presents as a safety fault when it is really a sizing fault.
That last symptom is worth recognising, because it gets misdiagnosed constantly. A door that stops part-way for no visible reason is often assumed to be a sensor problem — see automatic door sensors — when the drive is simply at its limit.
What we need to size an automatic door operator
Send the structural opening size, a photograph of the opening as it stands, roughly how many people pass through and what the building does. That is enough to specify an automatic door operator properly, and it is the same information on our quote form.
If the entrance already exists and you are adding a drive to it, the checks are slightly different — see can an existing door be automated. Requirements for powered pedestrian doors in South Africa are published through SABS.
Automatic door operator sizing, answered
What size automatic door operator do I need?
It follows the clear opening width, the leaf weight, the configuration and the expected cycles. Send the opening size and a photograph and we will specify it.
What is the difference between structural and clear opening?
Structural is the hole in the wall. Clear is what people actually walk through once the frame, tracks and parked leaf are accounted for. They are never the same number.
How wide can a sliding entrance be?
From 1450 mm to 5000 mm of clear opening on the MC-125. Bi-parting clears more in the same travel because each leaf moves half the distance.
Can one operator drive very heavy glass?
Up to 150 kg per leaf on our range. Beyond that the answer is a different configuration rather than a bigger motor on the same setup.
Does an oversized operator cause problems?
Far fewer than an undersized one. Headroom in the drive generally means longer life and steadier speeds.
Why does my door stop halfway?
Often read as a sensor fault, but frequently a drive at its load limit reading the effort as an obstruction. Worth checking the sizing as well as the sensors.
Who carries out the installation?
Our own technicians, or technicians working under our instruction. We commission the entrance on completion and demonstrate its operation before handover.
Does the entrance work during load-shedding?
With a battery backup it keeps operating through a slot. Without one it parks in the fail-open or fail-secure state chosen for the building, and the manual release is demonstrated at handover.
Do you service other manufacturers equipment?
Yes. Where we take over an entrance somebody else installed, we report its condition before committing to a maintenance interval.
Getting it specified
An automatic door operator that is right for the opening is invisible for years. One that is marginal is a recurring line on your maintenance budget.
Request a quote, or see the full range of automatic door systems.
In short
Automatic door operator at a glance
- Automatic door operator are quoted against the opening we measured, not a catalogue price.
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