In
the years since then, there has been a proliferation
of overhead sectional door and roll-up door companies
that have heavily marketed their products to the fire
station market to the point where these types of doors
are now primarily used. As a result, most of the companies
that manufactured four-fold doors could not compete,
and have targeted different markets or gone out of business.
In
a recent seminar presentation that Steve Bonacci, Assistant
Sales Manager for Electric Power Door (EPD—a manufacturer
of four-fold doors in Hibbing, Minnesota), made at a
conference for the Fire Industry Equipment Research
Organization (F.I.E.R.O.), he addressed advantages and
disadvantages of all the door types. He has also notice
a marked increase in inquiries in the past year regarding
security of doors. He explains, “During the past
couple of decades, there has been as high a concern
for security as we’ve had lately.”
When
a California Fire Department decided there was going
to be a number of building projects over the next few
years, a building committee was appointed to determine
the best ways to construct fire stations, with many
different structural components evaluated. Research
was done to compare purchase prices and operating costs
of the various kinds of doors that were installed in
their fire stations. In the research, it was discovered
that an unreasonable amount of money was being spent
on repairs, and upon closer inspection, the repairs
were almost all on overhead sectional or roll-up doors.
In
this case where three types of doors were mounted on
a fire station, including roll-up, overhead sectional
and four-fold doors, the results were significant. They
found that in FY 98/99, one roll-up door in a utility
area and one section overhead door for emergency vehicles
generated $1,353 in repairs and required electrical
work from an electrician. Meanwhile, the six four-fold
doors were trouble free. After discovering this initial
information, more research was conducted, and it was
found that the maintenance costs on overhead doors in
five other fire stations during the same time period
totaled $7,367.
The
California Fire Department did further research on the
initial cost of the different door types and compared
that to a lifetime of use, or the number of cycles that
can be expected, from the doors. According to their
comparisons, an overhead door that could be depended
on for 50,000 cycles had an initial cost of $6,500,
while a four-fold door that could be depended on for
over one million cycles had an initial cost of $25,000.
According to Jeff Jacobson, Vice President of Sales
and Marketing for EPD, “It’s not uncommon
for four-fold doors to last the lifetime of the building,
with very minimal maintenance.”
On
the east coast of the U.S., the major environmental
problem is hurricanes. Since 1991, hurricane winds have
been measured in S.E. North Carolina in a range of 45
MPH to 135 MPH. In 1996, the unusual situation occurred
of four tropical systems that passed through this area
in one year.
The
effect of hurricanes on garage doors has been studied
and placed in an educational program called “Blueprint
for Safety”, which has been produced by a collaboration
of private and public interests working under the direction
of the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes – FLASH,
Inc., a nonprofit, based in Florida. The web site for
the educational program is http://blueprintforsafety.org/windretrofit/windretrofit01.html.
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The
research conducted by this group found that “garage
doors are the most vulnerable to hurricane force winds
for two reasons:
- The
relatively long span of opening that they cover
- The
weak materials from which they are usually built
Many
garage doors are constructed from lightweight materials
to conserve weight and expense. Although their lighter
weight makes them easier to raise and lower, it also
makes them less resistant to the wind and impact forces
of a hurricane.” 1
The
Blueprint For Safety educational program is designed
to provide information about disaster-safety building
techniques and features help for families to become
better prepared for natural disasters. The information
regarding garage doors an be considered by commercial
or public buildings as well, because the garage doors
placed on buildings, such as fire departments, cover
an even larger span than garage doors on a family structure. |
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View
of the interior of an
overhead sectional door in a
southeast Florida fire station.
Because
of high wind concerns, 2" x 4" boards were
bolted to the door panel to provide extra stiffness.
Impact resistance was not addressed.
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The
potential weak areas of garage door assemblies are deflection
under wind-loads, track strength and installation, and
impact-resistance. Blueprint for Safety recommends replacing
the existing garage door and track with a system designed
to withstand wind-load and wind-borne debris. Another
option is to protect the opening with tested and approved
products such as exterior shutters. 2
The Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Fire Department is in
the process of installing four-fold apparatus doors
on ten openings of a new fire station. Four-fold doors
are also being retrofitted on other existing buildings
“We took a trip to Phoenix to look at the four-fold
doors on a fire station and were impressed with the
way they worked, so we decided to use them here,”
says Anthony Servian, Architectural Assistant for the
City of Fort Lauderdale. “We’re using the
doors because of low maintenance. When overhead doors
would break down, they would come slamming down. The
four-fold doors manufactured with windows, will meet
the hurricane code of South Florida for impact resistance
and wind load”
A report that covers the performance of apparatus doors
on fire stations, during and after a number of earthquakes
in California, was conducted in November 1998 on –
“Performance of Roll-up Garage Doors – Reexamining
the Performance of Roll-up Garage Doors in Fire Stations
in Recent California Earthquakes.” 3
One of the issues in the report had to do with “drift”
or movement of the door and frame during an earthquake,
and several potential problems are cited with the use
of roll-up or overhead sectional doors. This is a list
of other possible problems with overhead sectional or
roll-up doors, as stated in the report. 4
- Door
wheels can bind in their tracks or guides.
- Door
wheels bend the tracks or come out of their tracks.
- Door
systems generate their own inertia loads.
- Door
braces the opening…(because of) a diagonal compression
strut between the bottom corner bearing up against
the jamb and the opposite top corner of the door.
- Door
panels crimp.
- Door
panels buckle.
- Door
retraction springs fail.
- Door
hoists lose electrical power.
- Apparatus
pounds against the doors.
The
report further stated about sectional overhead and roll-up
doors that “Since fire stations comprise only
a small part of the overall commercial door industry,
a major market-driven shift to more reliable doors is
unlikely.” 5
The four-fold door types that were originally installed
on fire stations over 70 years ago were ahead of their
time, and had addressed many of the problems that are
inherent with the newer style overhead sectional or
roll-up doors. In an Electric Power Door publication
from the 1950s, it describes four-fold doors that were
used in “fire stations in New York City, Albany,
Buffalo, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and many
others, for over 25 years.”
Electric Power Door uses hydraulic operating systems
and hinged door panels. This eliminates the use of chains,
springs counterbalances, garage door rollers and side
guides that are the source of many of the problems.
The four-fold doors are typically two to three inches
thick, crafted of structural steel and a heavy-grade
14-gauge sheeting. This virtually eliminates the problem
of panels crimping or buckling, because of the structural
steel frame. The doors are also designed to accommodate
minor drift of 1- 1/2” or more. In addition to
natural disaster issues, heavier-duty door types have
been required in new construction and retrofit applications
recently because of security risks. Four-fold doors
can be custom designed to meet the needs of the fire
department, including aesthetics, high wind-loads, impact
resistance, security controllers, and other needs.
In case of a power failure, which is an inherent problem
during hurricanes, the four-fold doors have a way to
disconnect the operator and manually operate the doors
by hand safely, easily and quickly. This provides fire
station personnel with a pre-planned way to open the
doors in case of emergency. According to Servian, that
is another reason the four-fold doors have been selected
for the Fort Lauderdale Fire Stations.
An issue addressed in the report that affects fire stations
in any location was that, “Many firehouses have
a very tight vertical clearances between their trucks
and the head of the door openings. As a result, some
of these doors have been ‘clipped’ and damaged
by trucks passing through and striking doors that have
not been opened all the way. Some stations have installed
double top tracks to increase vertical clearances and
reduce door impacts.” 6 Servian has
also seen doors ‘clipped’ by trucks.
“The
four-fold doors are pretty quick. We’ve had fire
engines hit doors as they drive out,” he says.
He feels that the four-fold doors will solve the problem.
According to Bonacci, “Four fold doors open and
close at a speed of two feet per second, and because
they are sideways acting, they are always in the view
of the driver. Overhead types of doors are upward acting
and open at a speed of nine inches per second.”
When doing his presentation at F.I.E.R.O., Bonacci ended
it by saying that the Fire Departments should look at
all of their needs, rather than the cost of an apparatus
door, and base the decision on the door that will perform
to their specifications.”
Electric
Power Door can be contacted at 522 West 27th Street,
Hibbing, MN 55746; (800) 346-5760; mail@electricpowerdoor.com;
or www.electricpower.com.
The local representative is Youngblood & Associates,
2246-B Stevens Mill Road, Matthews, NC 28106-2234; (704)
847-5000.
- Federal
Alliance for Safe Homes, Inc.—FLASH. Blueprint
for Safety, 2001.Http://blueprintforsafety.org/windretrofit/windretrofit01.html.
- Ibid.
- Fred
Turner, Performance of Roll-Up Garage Doors –
in Fire Stations in Recent California Earthquakes,
(from the Lessons Learned Over
Time— Learning from Earthquakes Series, Earthquake
Engineering Research Institute, 1999).
- Ibid.,
p. 103-106.
- Ibid.,
p. 107.
- Ibid.,
p. 101.
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