How often should commercial doors be serviced?

"Once a year" is the answer many people give, and for a quiet office door it may be enough. But a supermarket entrance that opens a thousand times a day, or a warehouse door hit by forklift traffic, wears out many times faster. A good service schedule is built around how hard each door actually works.

Start by counting cycles, not months

Every door component has a life measured in cycles — one opening and one closing. The best example is the garage-door torsion spring: standard springs are commonly rated for around 10,000 cycles, while high-cycle springs are made for several times that.

Now compare two doors with the same standard spring:

• A shop shutter opened in the morning, closed for prayer times and closed at night may do 4–6 cycles a day — roughly 1,500–2,000 a year. The spring could last five years or more.
• A busy warehouse sectional door doing 50 cycles a day reaches about 18,000 cycles a year. The same spring may not last one year.

The same logic applies to rollers, cables, belts, motor brushes and gearboxes. So the first question for any door is: how many times a day does it move?

The four factors that set the schedule

1. Usage. Cycles per day, as above. Automatic entrances in malls, hospitals and supermarkets can do hundreds or thousands of cycles daily.
2. Door type. Automatic pedestrian doors have more sensors and electronics to check; high-speed doors and dock doors take more impacts; shutters suffer most from dirt in the guide rails.
3. Environment. In Riyadh, dust and sand get into tracks, sensors and motors, and summer heat dries out lubricants and strains electronics. Doors facing open ground or busy roads need more frequent cleaning.
4. Safety role. Doors on escape routes, fire shutters, and doors used by the public — especially children, elderly people and wheelchair users — need regular, documented safety checks regardless of how often they move.

Manufacturer requirements matter too. Many warranties are only valid if the door has been serviced at the recommended interval, so check your documents.

A practical schedule for Riyadh

As a starting point:

Adjust from there. If a door keeps needing repairs between visits, increase the frequency. If a door is barely used, you may be able to reduce it — but don't skip the safety checks.

Build a simple door register

For any site with more than a few doors, a register makes maintenance far easier. For each door, record:

• Location and door number (e.g. "Loading bay 3").
• Type, manufacturer and operator model.
• Estimated cycles per day.
• Service frequency.
• Date of each visit, what was done and parts replaced.
• Outstanding recommendations.

This turns maintenance from guesswork into a plan, makes budgeting easier, and gives you a dated history if an insurer, landlord or auditor asks.

What a proper service visit should include

A maintenance visit is more than a squirt of oil. Expect:

• Cleaning of tracks, guide rails, floor guides and sensor windows.
• Lubrication of the right parts with the right products — and not lubricating parts that should stay dry.
• Inspection of springs, cables, rollers, hinges, seals, panels and fixings.
• Operator checks: limits, forces, gearbox, belts, batteries and error logs.
• Safety tests: obstruction reversal, presence sensors, photocells, safety edges, manual release and emergency opening.
• A written report with any parts that are wearing and the cost to replace them.

Signs a door needs service sooner

Don't wait for the next scheduled visit if you notice:

• New noises — grinding, squealing or banging.
• Slower or jerky movement.
• The door reversing, stopping part-way or hesitating.
• Visible damage to panels, slats, cables or tracks.
• Sensors behaving inconsistently.

Catching these early is almost always cheaper than an emergency call-out. If you manage several doors or sites, a maintenance contract can put all of this on a fixed schedule and a fixed yearly cost.