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What is a Roller Shutter Door?
A roller shutter door is a door constructed from many individual steel or aluminium horizontal slats and operated by rolling the slats around a barrel directly up or down, with the assistance of either a spring, chan operated gearing, or an electric motor (or both) and guides either side to hold the curtain secure in place.
Roller shutter doors are a very commonly used type of door for either domestic, commercial or industrial use and usually defined and specified by their intended use in the application. The benefit of a roller door is the vertical operation and compact nature of the door curtain once fully opened. The curtain is normally occupying a space between 200 and 500mm above the door height, depending on the height and type of curtain slat used. Most roller doors in the 21st century will be using some kind of electric motor as the cost of this is very close to a manually operated door for nearly every type of door now.
Types and Usage
Roller shutter doors cover a multitude of uses, probably the most applications for any single type of door. They can be used for a huge variety of security roller shutters for doors, windows and other openings whether this be for a home or a business application. They will protect against the elements, vandalism and of course attempted burglary.
Roller doors are used for garage doors in various types, steel or aluminium, manual or electric operated and have become one of the most popular types of garage door in the last few years. Always made to measure and provided in almost any colour. Choose the right specification and you have a very secure, reliable and easy to use garage door protecting and providing excellent weather sealing.
We stress the fact of choosing the right specification, as with any door type but for roller doors there are far more dubious and cheaply constructed offerings in the UK than any others door type so please be aware and ask as many questions as possible when choosing. Roller doors by their nature have more moving parts than any other garage door, so if they are manufactured using cheap components you will find the door does fail very quickly and usually because of internal component failure with parts you cannot see from the outside of your door. Buy right and buy once!!
Insulated roller doors are now very popular indeed in industrial and commercial applications but also in domestic garages. Samson can offer a large range of various insulated doors with very good overall sealing properties from weather seals and solid aluminium or steel double skinned slats between about 20 - 30mm thick. An insulated roller door is a great feature, especially when it is combined with a high speed electric motor drive which may cost a little more but gets the door open in matter of seconds and cuts down heat loss dramatically.
Insulated roller doors by their very nature also have greater strength in the curtain and close down better, with almost no noise from rattling in high winds like single skin steel roller doors will have in most cases. If your roller shutter door is exposed to high winds then always consider the benefits of a high wind rating from an insulated double skinned lath construction.
Commercial and Industrial roller shutter doors are usually defined by the use of a higher rated 3 phase electric motor and a far sturdier structure to the supporting endplates and side guides to withstand vigorous activity and also enable much larger sizes of curtain to be used. If your roller door is to operate more than about 15 -20 times a day and is also large in width or eight it will be recommended to use a 3 phase industrial specification motor drive and general industrial specification build.
High speed roller door systems have become very common with a drive to conserve energy bills and drive efficiency and these high speed doors can be either in a fabric form or more modern steel and aluminium double skinned construction to provide 2 door functions in one. With speed of up to 2.5 metres per second these doors are fantastic for a modern commercial or industrial building.
Fire rated roller shutters are commonly used in so many applications and designed to prevent fire and smoke spreading throughout a building one activated. The curtain will be flame resistant and various levels of resistance are offered depending on the application and time for resistance specified.
For other applications such as servery shutters, cabinet enclosures, van and lorry apertures, general security on any aperture, insulation over windows, screening over windows and doors the roller shutter door is ideal in so many different forms but always the same operation, vertical rising up and down.
One very common mistake we do see all the time is the misuse of the word 'roller shutter door' in so many building plans where actually what is shown or required is a sectional overhead door. The 2 doors are very different indeed in their mechanics but we still see the crossover of terminology from architects and specifiers. A roller shutter door goes up and roll up into a roll where as a section overhead door slide upwards and then turns to slide inwards in most cases although it is possible to take a sectional door straight up it does not roll up.
For a straight and direct discussion on any type of roller door speak to Samson Doors on (01933) 448850 We have a roller door for every application, and will certainly ensure you get the right roller door for you.
