NYC Revolving Doors

Most of our revolving door work comes from building managers, co-op and condo boards, resident managers and commercial tenants who need one contact for the entrance. We diagnose first, tell you whether the fix is an adjustment, a part or a full assembly before we start, and leave a written note of what we found — the same record you can hand to the board or the insurer.

Common faults we repair

• Speed control. A door that spins too fast, hunts between speeds or does not slow when pushed hard usually has a worn or mis-set speed governor or brake in the canopy. It is a safety item as well as a comfort one.
• Wing alignment. Wings that scrape the drum, drag on the floor or leave uneven gaps point to a shifted center shaft, loose wing brackets or a worn top pivot.
• Floor pivot and bearing wear. Grinding, wobble at the center shaft or a door that has visibly dropped means the floor pivot or canopy bearings are worn. Left alone, this wears the wings and the drum too.
• Weather sweeps and seals. Worn rubber sweeps on the wing edges, floor and ceiling let conditioned air out and drafts in; the lobby feels it before the door shows it.
• Breakout (collapsing) hardware. Wings must fold under the required push for emergency egress and reseat properly afterwards. Wings that will not reseat, or that release too easily or too hard, need attention straight away.
• Locks and after-hours security. Floor and ceiling locks, electromechanical bolts and access-control-linked locks each fail differently; our guide to revolving door locking mechanisms explains the options.
• Sensors and operators. On powered doors, sensor faults and operator problems overlap with our automatic door service, and we handle both on one call.

Repair or replace

Repair is the right answer when the drum, canopy and structure are sound and parts are still supportable — bearings, pivots, sweeps, speed control, breakout hardware and locks are all replaceable. Replacement makes sense when the drum or frame is damaged, parts for the unit are no longer available, repairs have become a pattern, or the entrance no longer fits the building’s traffic, accessibility or security needs. We put the two options side by side so the board can decide with the facts in front of it.

Maintenance agreements

A scheduled maintenance agreement is how most managed buildings keep a revolving door out of the emergency column. We set the visit interval to the door’s traffic and age rather than a fixed calendar. Each visit checks and logs speed, breakout force, pivot and bearing condition, lubrication, wing alignment and clearances, sweeps and seals, fasteners, glass and wing edges, and the locking hardware, and we note anything that is wearing so it can be planned rather than discovered. The building gets a service log for its records, and small adjustments happen during the visit rather than as a separate call.

The adjacent ADA swing door

Under the ADA Standards a revolving door is not an accessible route, so the swing door beside it has to be in working order for the entrance to be compliant. We check it on the same visit: closer force and closing speed, clear opening width, hardware that can be operated without tight grasping, and the operator and sensors if it is powered. If your entrance has an automatic swing or slide door alongside the revolving unit, our automatic doors page covers what that side of the vestibule involves.

Guides mentioned above

• Revolving door locking mechanism types
• Automatic doors NYC