Expert industrial door suppliers, sara LBS, literally turned the rule book upside down when installing new roller doors for a horticultural growing shed and packing house at a major vegetable grower in Sussex.
Horticulture is an increasingly high tech business; achieving year-round production of fruit, vegetables and herbs with indoor growing requires intelligent automation and monitoring to help regulate temperature and other environmental stimuli. So Nick Cox, of sara LBS, wasn’t surprised when he was asked for a door solution which was a bit of a break from the norm by a vegetable producer near Chichester.
“The south coast enjoys some of the best weather in the country, so has long had large agricultural and horticultural industries,” he says. “A lot of the production is in glass houses or growing sheds and world class productivity is essential because the market is very competitive.
“For this job I was asked to develop designs for two doors. The smaller one was for a fairly conventional entry into a packing room, but the larger one was a little more unusual to say the least.”
The requirement was for a door with cut-outs to accommodate a track conveyor that transports plants into and out of a large growing room. Significantly this was an overhead conveyor which served a mezzanine many metres above floor level.
Because it was so near the roof the door’s drum had to be installed below the conveyor and the door had to work upside down.
The door needed to be 4,900mm wide by 950mm and have insulated sectional profiles. The application required the door to be operated two or three times a day, opening to let wide loads pass, and to provide a working life of seven to ten years.
As a total package provider, sara LBS supplies, installs and maintains industrial doors for factories, warehouses, and many other types of working building. Many of its installations have special requirements, such as high speed operation, thermal insulation and clean room capabilities, and, because they are often automated, safety features such as optical scanners have to be built in. Unlike many door suppliers, sara can design and install turnkey solutions that meet the most unusual of briefs, as well as providing long term repair and maintenance support.
For the Chichester project sara LBS’s heavy duty security roller shutter doors, which are based on hollow galvanised steel curtains, were filled with polyurethane insulation to reduce energy losses. These doors are available with manual push-up, hand chain or electric motor operation, the motor option being essential in this application. Galvanised steel is also used for door guides, coil cover and bottom rail for strengthen and long life.
“Our shutter doors were ideal for the job in hand and we worked through all the details like opening and closing speed, colour and weather seals with the client to come up with the ideal bespoke solution,” says Nick. “Interestingly, because the door is at a high level where no personnel ever go during normal production operations, we were able to dispense with the usual safety edge.
“We had to fit in with the building’s tight construction schedule. In fact, the doors were not ordered until late in the project, so we had to work to a very tight schedule and complete all our work in only six weeks..”
sara LBS understands that its doors are often crucial to the client’s production processes and their long term success, so always discusses service and maintenance strategies. In this case, it was decided that at least three service visits per year would be advisable, so that the overhead door in particular is always in the best possible condition.
SARA LOADING BAY SPECIALISTS
Tel: 01442 245577
Email: info@saralbs.co.uk
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