If you don’t know what to look for, it’s easy to specify or install a door that ends up with serious corrosion problems. That’s why I now offer a new seminar on Specifying Doors for Corrosive Environments. The free one-hour seminar provides one AIA/CES Learning Unit credit and covers such topics as:

• Applications of exterior-grade commercial doors that most commonly create corrosion problems.
• Corrosive chemical agents at work in corrosive applications.
• Causes and types of corrosion that harm doors.
• How door design, fabrication and maintenance affect  corrosion resistance and service life.
• Finish and material options available.
• What to look for when evaluating doors for corrosive environments.

For more information on this and other seminars available, give me a call at 205 988-4326.

We live in a world where everything is getting smaller, sleeker, and more efficient.  Our TVs, phones, computers, and MP3 players are all smaller, lighter and more powerful than ever.

So why do we still think that the only way to have a good, solid, durable door is for it to be as thick and as heavy as possible?

Special-Lite’s Fiberglass Reinforced Polyester (FRP) doors have challenged that old notion. These FRP doors are sleek and lightweight, thin and attractive, and even more efficient and durable than traditional doors.

Because of their low mass, Special-Lite’s FRP doors require less force to open and close, resulting in less wear and tear on their hardware and frames.  Because of their high compliance and elasticity, these doors have flexural strength, which allows them to absorb and bounce back from forces that might damage more rigid doors.

The proof, however, is in the testing.  Special-Lite has put these doors through rigorous tests in order to prove their strength and durability, including tests for endurance over several life spans, tests for endurance under hard and abusive conditions, and even tests for resilience and stamina under hurricane winds and explosive forces.  Under all of these conditions, Special-Lite’s FRP doors remained strong and functional, and only against a blast force of over 18,000 pounds within milliseconds did these doors sustain any damage at all.

Think of them as having heavyweight toughness without the weight.

Here’s a good article on the topic from Doors & Hardware.

Doors and school security go hand in hand, as every teacher, administrator, and PTA parent knows. Doors must be strong, durable, and reliable in order to keep schools physically safe, and Special-Lite doors have long met these key requirements. But Special-Lite goes a step further by manufacturing doors that protect students from the unseen risk of harmful emission.

For instance, Special-Lite doors were the first exterior entrance products to be GreenGuard Certified through the Greenguard Environmental Institute (GEI), which means they were the first to seriously address the impact that doors can have on indoor air quality.

Because doors can emit volatile organic compounds such as formaldehyde and phthalates, Special-Lite took action and eliminated the issue with its GreenGuard Certified doors. Special-Lite doors have stood up to rigorous testing, including GEI’s Children & Schools Standard, and have created a product that is safe for all, and especially for children. Special-Lite’s attention to safety, in every sense of the word, makes it a great choice for schools.

Social media is changing business, fundamentally. Everything from communication to personal interactions and the very culture of organizations is shifting as a result, making social media potentially the biggest change in business communication since the introduction of mass media. In this video from Radian6, Marcel Lebrun riffs on the new notions of how the medium and the message are working together more powerfully than ever before.

Entrance systems consist of doors, frames and hardware. Sometimes people think great doors will somehow make up for the deficiencies in the other components of entrance systems. Well… it doesn’t work that way.

For instance, let’s look at door closers. They are critical to proper operation of entrance systems, and they really should be called door controllers. Besides just closing doors, they keep doors from swinging too fast, or too hard. By keeping doors under control, door closers help to prevent damage to entrance systems, and they help to prevent injuries to people using the doors. As they perform these important functions, door closers are subject to extremely high operating forces, and cheap closers wear out quickly leaving doors and frames vulnerable to the ravages of use and abuse.

The picture at the left shows and example of failed door closers. Neither door is properly under control, and the door on the left doesn’t even close all the way. These doors were equiped with bargain-brand concealed door closers. Not a very good bargain! Doors in high-traffic openings should have high quality hardware.

In my opinion, the specifier should have chosen premium grade, heavy-duty, surface applied door closers for this opening. The right closers not only protect entrance systems, they also protect the people using the entrance systems.

The introduction of Special-Lite’s SL-17 Fiberglass Reinforced Polyester (FRP) door revolutionized the world of heavy-duty doors nearly 40 years ago and has yet to be matched for its strength and resilience. Since that time, Special-Lite has expanded its series of composite doors, each sharing an unbeatably strong and durable physical structure, but differing in stylistic choice and exterior skin.

One constant question we get, as clients search for that perfect combination of strength with style, is “what’s the difference?”

Each of this series of composite doors has a poured-in-place polyurethane core, rendering the doors 30% lighter than comparably sized steel doors. Reduced mass and monolithic construction translates into significantly less wear and tear on the door’s individual components while enhancing the door’s strength by carrying operating loads through the door skins.

While the SL-17 Series doors are a favorite in the schools and universities for their strength and durability, Special-Lite offers a variety of aesthetic choices to allow for a greater client choice and to meet individual needs. Although all of Special-Lite’s foam core doors share the poured-in-place foam composite structure, some stylistic choices include:

SL-16: Aluminum skin painted or anodized for enhanced architectural beauty

SL-17: Flagship FRP door, durable pebble-grain surface is tough and easy to clean

SL-18: Acrylic Modified Polyester (AMP) skin, 6-panel Colonial style door available in wood grain or smooth surface

SL-19: AMP skin, flush door with wood texture

SL-20: FRP skin with a Sandstone texture, handsomer than SL 17, and nearly as tough

On February 4th, TruStile announced the launch of a new and improved version of its TruCAD Door Design Software. The new application has been completely redesigned to work on any computer operating system or web browser, including Mac and Firefox. In addition to its cross platform flexibility, TruCAD has been upgraded to include exciting new design options and visualization tools.

Visit TruCAD today to test drive the new features and functionality.

To learn more about TruStile Doors and their unmatched offering of premium stile and rail MDF and wood door visit www.TruStile.com/

More businesses than ever are seeing a need for secure facilities, which in turn creates a need for top level security doors, and Mayer Door can provide doors that meet a wide range of security specifications. After all, a door represents the front line of security and provides the entryway into any facility.  Doors are especially important when entry should be restricted, and when high security standards are a must.

The DCID, or Director of Central Intelligence Directive, has a comprehensive list of base level physical requirements for SCIFs, or Secure Compartmented Information Facilities, and we at Mayer Door can both meet and exceed those standards in our secure doors. Most facilities’ needs, of course, are less extreme than those of the CIA, and we represent products to meet those as well.

Events of recent years have changed the way we specify doors and windows for some buildings. We have also learned a new vocabulary. Here are the definitions of three commonly used terms: antiterrorism, counterterrorism, and force protection.

The Department of Defense (DoD) defines “antiterrorism” as “defensive measures used to reduce the vulnerability of individuals and property to terrorist acts.” This is distinct from “counterterrorism,” which refers to “offensive measures taken to prevent, deter, and respond to terrorism. Both are part of the DoD concept of “force protection,” which brings together all the security disciplines in a broader program to protect service members, civilian employees, family members, facilities and equipment.

The International Code Council has partnered with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) to create an International Green Construction Code that will guide the design and construction of green commercial projects.

The initiative seeks to develop a regulatory framework for sustainable construction that is consistent with ICC codes and standards nationwide.  The initiative was launched in June 2009, and the first draft of the regulations will be presented this year for public comment.

“This will be the first time code officials, owners and designers will have an integrated regulatory framework to put into practice that meets the goal of greening the construction and design of new and existing buildings,” said Code Council CEO Richard P. Weiland. “Only a code that is useable, enforceable and adoptable will have the capability of impacting our built environment in dramatic ways.”