Fire Station Doors

When a fire emergency strikes, a community relies on its fire department to provide a fast response. That means a fire station needs garage doors it can count on to work when time is of the essence. 

In addition to functionality and reliability, fire station garage doors must also:

• Allow fire trucks to quickly and safely exit the building.
• Seal out cold, heat and the weather.
• Fit within a fire department’s budget.
• Be easy to maintain.
• Contribute to the building’s overall visual appeal.

These factors are what designers and fire department personnel consider when installing new fire station bay doors or replacing older doors with newer models. In this guide, we’ll discuss the advantages of fire station doors and provide a brief overview of the different types available. 

Benefits of Fire Station Doors 

One of the greatest benefits of a high-quality fire station door is its ability to be operated by hand — all it requires is pulling a cord. Other advantages of fire station bay doors include:

• They’re easy to maintain: Preventative maintenance for a four-fold door involves applying grease on operators and hinges. Conventional coil and sectional doors, on the other hand, have cables and springs that must be constantly maintained and replaced. This maintenance is costly and, if neglected, could lead to door failure. 
• They’re essential for high-security applications: Four-fold sally door systems are critical in situations where higher security levels are required. Heavy-duty panels constructed from tube steel can feature security glass, be inset with security louvers or be solid sheeted. They’re designed to withstand forced entry and feature tamperproof fasteners, detention-grade locking mechanisms, high-speed operation and options for armor sheeting. With a sturdy door like this one, you can rest assured that your building is secure. 
• They can withstand collisions: It’s is not uncommon for vehicles to lose sight of the door while backing up and collide with the bottom as they exit. While this type of collision may make it difficult to operate certain types of garage doors, four-fold doors are designed to withstand such damage and continue working afterward. 

Types of Fire Door Solutions

There are a number of options available when it comes to choosing a fire door for your facility. Some of the most common include:

Four-Fold Fire Station Doors

Four-fold doors are considered to be the highest-quality type of fire doors. They’re essentially bi-fold doors that are split in the middle and open to both the right and left. 

They’re also high-cycle and can be custom-designed. You can specify exactly what you need, including the number of windows or an arched opening. 

Four-fold doors can be designed to be tornado- and hurricane-resistant as well. Even blast and bullet-resistant four-fold fire doors are available. 

Over the past decade, four-fold fire doors have seen a gradual increase in popularity. This is attributed to the various advantages they offer, including a fast operating speed and their ability to minimize building energy loss. Many feature large panels of low-E, insulated, high-performance glass. 

In addition to speed and performance, these doors are also popular because there is no wear on critical components, unlike with overhead sectional and rolling steel doors. This is in part because of the door’s relative simplicity — the doors consist of just two panels that fold off to the sides and are operated by a mounting that’s installed overhead, which rotates to open and close the door. The most wear you’ll see — if any at all — is on a weather seal, but even then, this won’t impact the door’s operation. 

Bi-Fold Fire Station Doors 

Bi-fold doors have two horizontal slats, which fold outward and slide along a track when opening. In the open position, bi-fold doors are stacked on either side, which results in a view that is completely unobstructed, providing extra space. 

Bi-fold doors come in various material types, including UPVC, aluminum and wood. However, because the bi-fold doors feature only two slats compared to the four-fold’s four slats, they are not as common in fire stations and other facilities where large vehicles regularly enter and leave. One advantage of bi-fold doors, though, is that they generally require less maintenance due to their fewer moving components. 

Overhead Rolling Fire Station Doors

Fire station overhead doors have the benefit of being less expensive than four-fold doors. Another potential benefit of overhead rolling doors is that, since the doors travel along tracks up toward the ceiling, they don’t take up space on the sides of the opening. If you don’t have the space to accommodate a four-fold door, an overhead rolling door may be your best option. 

If you opt for an overhead fire door, keep in mind that, due to their weight, they are generally equipped with a spring system with a spring assist, balancing system or strong motor. Due to all these moving components, overhead doors must be regularly maintained to operate properly. 

Retrofitting

If you’re considering retrofitting your station with new bay doors, you must weigh the pros and cons of each door type. In the case of a four-fold door, the main thing you have to consider is the base requirement. This is because the doors will use up a certain amount of space on the sides and the top when they move. It’s also important to consider that they’re more expensive than doors that move upward. On the plus side, they require less maintenance than other doors. 

Why Choose Us for Fire Door Solutions?

Garage Door Specialists, Inc. is a Morganton, NC, company that provides garage door installations, repairs and other services for Hickory, Lenoir and all of Western North Carolina. The benefits of working with us include:

• Honesty and professionalism: At Garage Door Specialists, Inc., we are committed to building strong relationships with our customers and making sure they’re taken care of for years to come. Our high level of customer satisfaction is reflected by our excellent reviews, where business owners and homeowners consistently praise our integrity and professionalism. 
• Free estimates: We take the uncertainty out of buying a new door by providing our estimates free of charge. We come to you and walk you through all your available options and provide you with a free quote. For our repair services, we may even be able to provide a diagnosis right on the phone. In roughly 25% of repair calls, the solution is simple and can be handled by the customer. In these cases, we’ll explain how to repair the issue yourself for no charge at all.
• Affordability: When choosing Garage Door Specialists, Inc., you can always count on affordable service, and there will never be hidden costs. We believe in an honest, straightforward approach.
• 24-7 Availability: We realize that a broken garage door makes your building vulnerable to intruders and the elements, which is why we offer 24-hour emergency repair. 

If you’d like to request a service or learn more about what we do, feel free to call us at 828-584-2297 or fill out our online contact form.