The sleek, sliding automatic glass doors you see at offices and other corporate spaces aren't just for decoration; these stunning entry points help welcome visitors, guide traffic, and help preserve indoor climate zones, all while giving your spaces a clean, modern look. Automatic doors come in many forms - sliding, swing, and revolving storefront systems are just a few of the endless possibilities that local suppliers in Doha can offer you with their wide range of products. They offer an advantage over regular doors, especially in the hospitality, medical and corporate sectors as they make spaces seem more inviting, encourage more foot traffic, let more light in, and allow passersby to observe inside the building before steeping into it. Largely used as commercial entrance doors, automatic sliding doors are a convenient, secure, and accessible way to greet customers and clients upfront.
Sliding doors are a stylish and affordable commercial door option that create a welcoming and functional entryway. They're often installed in tandem with an air door or air curtain - basically a gush of air administered via a special device that's used to prevent air or contaminants from moving from one open space to another. The most common use is a downward-facing blower fan mounted over an entrance to a building, or an opening between two spaces conditioned at different temperatures. Sliding doors come in a variety of options, including but not limited to:
- Overhead concealed sliding door systems - ideal for new construction and compatible for retrofit, these come with magnetic catches, hydraulic closers or U-factor insulated glass to further enhance the door's performance and boost energy savings
- Surface mount sliding doors - extremely adaptable and readily fixed to existing structures with minimal adjustments, these doors are great for retrofit construction and easy accessibility
- Telescoping doors - great for small spaces with sizable entrances, these doors feature an additional sliding door active leaf, and slide their panels onto each other as users walk through
- Commercial glass entry doors - create a stunning aesthetic with all-glass, transparent doors that let the outside in. These all-glass entrance doors can be customised with a painted or clad finish, and certain suppliers even offer the option of having your logo etched into the glass panels
Swing doors are another type of option you might want to consider. They're available in exterior and interior version, and offer incredibly flexibility, efficiency and convenience to your users. They come in low-energy and full-energy commercial options and feature a mechanized arm that pulls or pushes open doors on command or via a sensor. Automatic swing doors can be surface mounted with heavy-duty electro-mechanical operators for large heavy doors, overhead and for an aesthetically pleasing solution, mounted out of sight and in ground with an in ground water-resistant enclosure, operator and arm - adaptable to multiple configurations, or simply an electro-hydraulic unit that can be surface mounted to existing fixtures with minimal effort or modifications. Swing doors can also come equipped with low energy operators, great in high-traffic environments, where doors need to be reliable and durable. Swing doors are quiet, efficient, and often come in a variety of adjustable opening and closing speeds. Swing doors pride themselves on convenience, which is why they're often installed on smoke and fire doors which have to be closed with great force and opened easily and automatically in case of an emergency.
The third most common type of automatic door is the revolving door. Popularised by boutique and high-end department stores, revolving automatic doors come with two, three, four, or six compartments. Revolving doors work to segment foot traffic, and help manage high volumes of people by nature of their design. Two and three wing revolving doors are great for malls, hotels and stores because they're built with additional space to accommodate shopping carts, luggage, wheelchairs, and bellhop trolleys. They allow a higher volume of traffic, and a more seamless flow, while allowing for optimum climate control by securely sealing entrances when the unit is closed. Most revolving door systems also come with an optional night-closing door that acts as a sole entry point during after-hours.
These efficient, elegant solutions allow barrier-free access and passage in most modern buildings, especially ones that experience a high footfall. In the health sector, sliding doors are a sanitary necessary. The lack of a door knob means that germs are less likely to spread from one person's hands to another's. In the hospitality sector, automatic doors at lobbies provide an air of affluence and offer guests unparalleled convenience and a great welcome impression. Automatic doors leading to the kitchen and other areas enable hospitality staff to safely perform their tasks, and ensures smooth service. In retail, automatic doors offer shoppers a welcoming and comfortable entryway while saving energy and drawing customers in with their see-through design. In public and government buildings, automatic doors are often a building regulation as they provide the safest and most energy-efficient way for high volumes of people to enter spaces.
While automatic doors may differ in design and application, with styles ranging from in-line sliding, telescoping sliding, curved sliding, prismatic sliding, single and double-leaf swing, large-capacity revolving, compact sliding, they all work on the same basic components:
- Activation device: This is a detector which registers an open command and transfers it to the drive control/control unit. There are manual detectors, such as touch pads, remote controls, buttons and switches, and automatic detectors, such as movement detectors, sensors, photoelectric barriers and digital barriers. For reasons of convenience, several different types of detectors are often fitted to an automatic door.
- Control unit: This is the brain of the system, which usually includes timer switches, settings for opening speeds, angles and hold-open time, and if applicable additional safety technology such as access controls, video monitoring, etc.
- Drive: The door drive uses motor force to open the door. The drive pulls the door open and then closes it again.
- Sensor strips: Sensor strips (presence detectors) monitor the path of the door leaves and the closing edges. They promptly stop the door if there is a threat of collision or entrapment involving a person or object. There are many different types of sensors that can sense different types of things, such as sound, light, weight, and motion. Some automatic doors operate when they're triggered by sensors that sense weight. They're often disguised in a rubber mat in front of the door, in spaces like groceries and hospitals. Other automatic doors operate on optic or motion sensors that are usually mounted mounted above or built on the top or the sides of the frame of the automatic door.