Would you drive your car without it being serviced or being given an MOT?
The answer should be no, after all who wants to feel unsafe when operating their vehicle?
You are more at risk of accidents, and costs associated with breakages increase exponentially when car health is ignored.
Now ask the first question again, this time using your on-site door and its health.
The same logic applies, and yet many businesses neglect the servicing and maintenance of their on-site doors, potentially costing them thousands each year in callout charges and replacement parts on what could be perfectly serviceable doors.
This blog will explain how a regular maintenance process could save you on these associated costs, what those costs are, and where the responsibilities lie for the owner and the contractor during maintenance. Hopefully it will demystify some of the processes involved and highlight the importance of regular maintenance.
The Importance of Maintenance
“Regulations 5 and 18 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 require that doors at workplaces are safe and subject to a system of maintenance (system manager responsibility).” – DHF TS012, Code of practice.
The objective of maintenance is to make sure that doors and gates are safe. Maintenance is an often overlooked and even neglected part of business expenditure, but what often comes from this is a series of extra expenditures that can quickly become quite costly.
An example below of how a routine problem on a Roller Shutter can quickly rack up additional charges if left by a business.
– A customer calls in regarding issues with the operation of their sectional door; the motor was leaking oil.
– An engineer is sent to survey the door for the exact issue and a health check.
– An unsafe warning tag was applied the door as the health check on the door revealed that there were safety critical defects on it.
– Quotations for new parts required to fix the door amounted to £2795
– Due to the severity of door’s safety issues, an additional quotation was also given to the customer for a new door installation, costing £3756
– Customer chose an installation on a new door costing £3756 rather than the repairs.
As you can see, what started as a simple issue of oil leakage for the customer, became extremely expensive as no maintenance had been carried out on their door previously.
If you have required any emergency callouts to doors left in disrepair in the past year, your business may have been subject to some, if not all these excess charges. Businesses call us out 2-3 times a year on average with emergencies on broken or problematic doors, which can easily be avoided by routine maintenance, saving thousands each year, as well as avoiding losses from damaged stock (frozen food industries, etc.) and lost storage space.
Regular maintenance keeps your industrial doors health intact, avoiding issues that could lead to serious injury or worse.
Your Responsibilities
“The principal responsibility for ensuring that essential maintenance is undertaken lies with the person in control of the premises in which the door or gate is installed. In a workplace, this is usually the employer.” – Door Hardware Federation
Many employers and site owners are often confused by the ownership surrounding the maintenance process, as well as ownership of usage after a contractor has deemed your industrial or commercial door as unsafe.
If an accident involving an industrial door or shutter takes place, the building manager or owner runs the risk of facing prosecution under the Health Safety at Work Act 1974, for failing to ensure the health, safety, and welfare of his employees. The same legislation also requires employers and the self-employed to safeguard persons not in their employment, which would include visitors, passers-by and even trespassers.
Our Responsibilities
“Any contractor employed to carry out maintenance or repair work is legally required to ensure that their work results in a gate or door which is safe for anyone who could be affected by it. If, having informed the person in control of the premises about the risks, it proves to be impracticable to make the door or gate safe for further use, the only recourse for the contractor is to leave the door or gate out of service.” – DHF, maintenance of doors and gates.
We as contractors maintain that open communication is extremely important when working on door and gate systems. As such, we follow rigorous health and safety checks when handling maintenance surveys on site.
If a door or gate is deemed to have safety critical issues after a health and safety check, it will be switched off, tagged and the owner informed that they should not use the equipment and should have this seen to immediately as it is now at risk of further wear and damage or causing harm or even fatal injury.
If you need door servicing & maintenance, then check out our website. We offer services on a wide range of Industrial & Commercial doors.
We also offer quick and easy quotation estimates for maintenance work you may need here – https://www.angliadoors.co.uk/maintenance-quotation/
Important Links –
DHF Code of practice – https://www.dhfonline.org.uk/publications/technical-specifications/1.htm
DHF Maintenance page – https://www.dhfonline.org.uk/maintenance.htm
DHF FAQ – https://www.dhfonline.org.uk/pg/automated-door-gate–traffic-barrier-faqs/875.htmHSE
HSE Legal Responsibility – https://www.hse.gov.uk/workers/employers.htm
