An automatic entrance is a machine in a doorway, and the standard it falls under decides the hardware
The dormakaba entrance range covers automatic swing operators, automatic sliding doors including the tighter-sealing types used in clinical spaces, revolving doors, security revolving doors and interlocks, speed gates and turnstiles. Choosing between them is not a style question. It follows from how the door is activated, how many people pass in the busiest minute, and what has to happen when power is lost.
Low energy or full power
A low-energy swing operator is activated by a knowing act, meaning somebody presses an actuator or presents a credential. It opens slowly enough that guide rails are not required, and it is the usual answer for an accessible entrance on an existing opening. A full-power automatic door, whether swing or slide, opens at speed on sensor detection and brings its own requirements with it: presence and motion sensing, guide rails or safety zones on swing units, signage, and clear floor space that a renovated lobby often does not have. Sliding doors and full-power swings are covered by ANSI/BHMA A156.10, low-energy and power-assist units by A156.19, and revolving doors by A156.27. Establish which one applies before the opening is dimensioned, because the standard governs the clearances, not the other way around.
Throughput sets lane count, not the other way around
Speed gates and turnstiles are sized by peak-minute population, not by headcount. A corporate lobby off Cumberland Parkway or in Perimeter with staggered start times behaves nothing like a tower where six elevator banks empty into one lobby at 8:45. Count the peak, allow for the visitors and couriers who do not carry credentials, and add at least one wider lane that meets accessibility clearances and can pass a cart or a wheelchair. Full-height turnstiles belong at unattended perimeter points where an unstaffed breach is unacceptable; optical speed gates belong where a receptionist can see the lane. Security revolving doors and interlocks are for the openings where one authorized credential must equal exactly one person, which is a genuinely different problem from counting traffic.
What Georgia does to an automatic entrance
Humidity and temperature swing are the quiet enemies. Presence and motion sensors mounted on a header that sees direct afternoon sun drift out of calibration faster than the annual cycle assumes, and condensation forms on the sensor face when a chilled lobby meets outside air in July. Sliding thresholds collect grit and pine debris that stall a leaf at the last inch of travel. Wind-driven rain against a large glass entrance loads the operator differently than the bench test did. On the coastal plain near the port, salt reaches the track and fasteners, and stainless components stop being an upgrade and start being maintenance planning. Every powered entrance also needs a defined behavior on power loss, including breakout where it is required and a manual opening force a person can actually apply.
The ownership regime, agreed at handover
- Who performs the daily safety check, and where it is recorded
- The annual inspection interval by a certified inspector, scheduled rather than remembered
- Sensor cleaning and recalibration frequency, which is climate-dependent and not a fixed number
- Which spares are held on site: sensors, activation devices, seals, and the parts that strand a door when they fail
- The written sequence of operation covering fire alarm interface, power loss and after-hours lockdown
Where the entrance meets access control
An entrance system and a card reader are usually bought from different lines and installed by different trades, and the seam between them is where problems live. A speed gate has to know an anti-passback decision was made; a security revolving door has to accept a credential result and report the outcome back. Establish early which system holds the user database and which one simply obeys, and confirm the interface is one both products actually publish rather than one assumed on a submittal.
Send the opening, the traffic pattern and what is installed now. KSEDCO can work through the standard, the lane count and the maintenance regime before anything is priced. Call (888) 360-0035 or use the contact page.
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