How to obtain faster prices on commercial entrance doors.

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Nick Dardalis

If you are a door installer fitting entrance or exit doors to buildings that are not dwellings, are you still providing residential entrance doors? The specification of the right commercial door for business premises or a public building will often be the responsibility of the local door company.

In some cases, the business owner will contact the same double glazing firm that provided the windows to their home. Often they will assume that the doors they have in their home are also suitable for their business premises although this is not the case.

photo of commercial doors with electric strike
In any building that is not a dwelling, professional door companies know that only a commercial door should be fitted.

Where residential doors are installed in commercial buildings, the door provider runs the risk of providing a door that has not been designed for heavy duty use typical of commercial premises. Even in some ‘light commercial’ buildings such as church halls or community centres that are only used at certain tiles of the week rather than on a daily basis, there are still legitimate reasons why a commercial door makes for a far better door than one found in a private home.

Some door installers regard commercial aluminium doors are complicated to specify, order and install.  Speak to any professional door installer and they will often tell you that commercial doors are not complicated to sell or fit.  Choose your commercial doors from the right supplier that can help you specify your door as well as provide it in a way that makes it easy to install and you can provide your commercial customers with a door that is secure, functional and above all highly reliable. What is more, commercial doors in commercial premises are fit for purpose and in many cased legally compliant.

How to buy commercial doors.

There are a large number of commercial door manufacturers and suppliers that specialise in providing fabricated commercial doors to the trade. These vary greatly in what systems and what service they provide.  In our experience, many door installers are put off from purchasing commercial doors because they do not understand the many types of hardware that are available to them and how to sell them.  For this reason, many in the trade choose to keep their work ‘simple’ by sticking to what they know and providing residential doors instead.

The problem with residential doors is that often they will be altered to meet the demands of a busy building that has far more people using the door.  Examples include adding an extra hinge or a face fixed door closer.  In the case of fire exit doors, some installers elect to remove the standard lock and replace it with a blanking plate.  Then they will fix a face applied panic bar designed for timber doors.

These modifications may provide a short-term solution, but in our experience, the door does not remain reliable for long because it is simply not designed for heavy usage,  opened and closed substantially more times than it would ever be in someone’s home.

If you are looking to buy commercial doors and are unsure where to start, we offer you some information and advice on how to choose a better installer.

  • You will need an installer that can guide you through the hardware required to suit entrance doors or fire exit doors.
  • The right supplier will be able to help you order your door to meet the needs of your customer.
  • Commercial door prices should be provided quickly with minimum delay.
  • Doors will be supplied to you in such a way that makes them easy to fit.
  • Commercial doors with individual locks, panic bars or access control should be easy to install and set up.
  • The right supplier should provide you with information on legislation and regulation around commercial doors.

How to get commercial door prices.

The many established and expert fabricators and suppliers of commercial doors for the trade do provide an excellent service overall in obtaining a commercial door. However, pricing on commercial doors can still be a time-consuming process for many, leaving installers waiting for a price to provide a quotation to their customers.

Commercial door prices have not reached the more advanced stage of residential doors whereby may suppliers can provide you with instant prices.  The reason for this is that residential doors largely contain standard colours and standard hardware such as multi-point locks and lever handles.

Commercial doors include a far more diverse range of options that can be more product and building specific.  Add to this the huge variety of handles, access locks, panic bars, colours and other options and it is understandable why prices can often take a long time to obtain.

Commercial Door Prices are available online.

In researching obtaining commercial door prices faster and better we found one company specialising in commercial doors, Commercial Door Supplies based in Cheshire and delivering throughout the UK have something very useful to all buyers of commercial doors on their website. They offer a very easy to use online form that provides a different and better way we think, to obtain commercial door prices.

We tested out their online ordering system and were very impressed with its simplicity given the complex nature of a commercial door.  Equally impressive is that the Commercial Door Supplies website addresses many of the factors around doors that need to be known beforehand.

If you are a manufacturer of commercial doors, you too can relate to the specifics of a door that you need clarity on to provide a correct price. Examples include closer options, locks, and even specific sections such as stiles, rails and frames all of which can affect the price quoted.  Commercial Door Supplies have managed to overcome this obstacle to obtaining fast commercial door prices online, very well indeed.

We know commercial doors very well work with the product regularly.  We can tell you that one of the best features of the online quoter was the step by step process in selecting your options exactly as they would be asked for by a professional supplier.  Better still, as you choose the options, the Commercial Door Supplies online quotation form for doors provides ongoing information about how your door will be supplied  from the options you have selected. It works and is accurate as well.

What is even better still is at the end of the process you have fully specified a door that not only gives you an accurate price but one that can be used to place an order as well.

Finding information about commercial aluminium doors.

As a specialist aluminium website, we have a large amount of information about commercial aluminium doors.  Examples include information on Building Regulations, BS8300 and Approved Document M. Other information includes how to specify hardware correctly, considerations and other information.  Commercial Door Supplies have a very comprehensive section on their website that provides buyers of commercial doors with a huge amount of information explaining how commercial doors work, understanding the various locks, panic bars, electric strikes and other locks and much more besides.

As a website with 30 years experience working with commercial doors, we think Commercial Door Supplies have managed to overcome some of the most common and often confusing areas around commercial doors that often result in installers fitting residential doors instead.

If you are a door installer that purchases ready-made commercial doors, take a look at the Commercial Door Supplies website.  Have a go at using the form to specify a product and we are sure you will agree that requesting prices for commercial doors has suddenly become much easier than before. It can even cover the questions you will need to ask your customer and should save you time surveying it too.

Let us know what you think.