One particular type of commercial doors that has been shown to be very effective for retail stores, and really all types of businesses in general, is a product known as the Ellison balanced doors. Made by the Ellison company, these pivoted doors are created in a way to allow very heavy, large doors to swing open without much pressure at all, according to Mackenzie Door Company’s Roger Soucek.
As the president of a commercial door repair company in New York, Soucek says that he understands the pitfalls of many swinging doors all too well. When those doors eventually break from overuse, he is the person who gets the calls. He says he rarely gets complaint calls from people with Ellison balanced doors, though, because the product simply lasts so long.
In general, a balanced door is a specially pivoted door that allows for a very heavy or very large door to operate in a way that is similar to a standard weight or standard size door. These types of doors balance on a much larger pivot than what you would normally see on a door, Soucek explains. That, in turn, allows the pressure of the building to equalize as the door is operating. “Basically meaning that the back edge of the door actually goes into the open space, which allows external pressure to be able to slide in when the internal pressure flows out,” Soucek says.
Installing a balanced door is one way to ensure that the door on your business won’t have the “sail effect” that can happen when a customer tries to open a heavy hinged door. “You pull on it, and it feels like you are pulling a large sail or a large wind barrier,” Soucek says. “But the balanced door actually controls that.”
When someone opens a balanced door, he or she can operate a 400 lb. or 500 lb. door in a way that feels like he or she is operating just a 120 lb. door, according to Soucek. This is achieved because of the way the door hardware and pivoting hardware are balanced within the overall system.
What makes the Ellison balanced door such a gem for clients in the commercial door industry in New York is that they rarely need repair, and they are known for lasting much longer than the balanced doors made by other competing companies. “The interesting part is that of all the companies that have developed this technology, Ellison is the only company that actually got it right,” says Soucek.
So how do they do it? Soucek says that Ellison has been making these doors for nearly 100 years, and that the company was the first to actually come up with the concept for the balanced door to begin with. Although Ellison doors are slightly more pricey than balanced doors made by competing companies, Soucek says that customers will actually end up saving money in the long run since Ellison doors last for much longer.
When customers come into Soucek’s company office in New York City for help with commercial door repairs or new door installation, they will sometimes ask why it is worthwhile to pay more for an Ellison balanced door than a cheaper competing model. In response, Soucek will suggest that the client show him any door that is more than 25 years old and is still working in the same way it was intended. Even better, he’ll recommend that the building owner or client call the cheaper balanced door company and ask for a list of doors they installed that are still working after all that time.
Recently, Soucek tells us that his company installed a series of Ellison balanced doors on one of the Trump apartment buildings along the Hudson River in New York City. “They have such unique pressure wind problems with the air coming off of the Hudson [at the Trump building], and this was the only door that allows people to get in and out of the building without the huge problems that are known to happen in high rises with wind conditions,” Soucek says