Cleaning personnel night even wedge a broomstick between the door and framework to prop open hospital steel doors as fast-moving gurneys attack them, imposing damage, backpack-toting students jump-kick an exit mechanism as they rush to leave campus, and gurneys are assaulting hospital doors right now. A facilities manager’s budget may truly suffer if they need to purchase new doors. Fortunately, replacing steel doors is not always necessary. Here are some tips to help you choose whether to fix or replace a door in your building. A correctly built steel frame that is put to use regularly will last. In terms of the beginning, there are a few things you should keep an eye out for. It is best to replace the door and frame when an older building’s frame is no longer square, plumb, and level. If you were to merely replace the door and preserve the current frame, you may leave yourself vulnerable to problems like insufficient clearances for fire-rated doors, poorly fitting and working hardware, and excessive stress on hinges (also known as “hinge bind”). Returning to the hospital scenario, repeatedly slamming a gurney or crash cart against a steel door may cause enough core damage. Whatever the reason, once the core is damaged, the integrity of the door is put in jeopardy, necessitating its replacement. 
If the door is exhibiting symptoms of delamination, maybe as a result of water damage or severe circumstances, you’ll also need to replace it. A door should be changed if it becomes fragile and has lost its rigidity. By placing your foot at the door’s base on the lock stile side and attempting to draw the top of the door toward you, you may test this by attempting to rotate the door vertically. Your core is likely to be delaminated if it moves more than 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch. Usually, rust develops within the door. Therefore, once you see rust on the door’s outside, the door’s core has already been damaged; it is now too late, and a replacement door must be installed. If rust is the cause of your door’s deterioration, you may want to think about replacing it with a galvanized door. This iron-zinc coating shields the steel from moisture, preventing corrosion. Today’s doors have a galvanized coating on the inside AND the outside, substantially extending the door’s lifespan in terms of rust penetration. In general, doors that have been the victim of forced entry or vandalism need to be replaced since such force often compromises the core and damages the edges. 
Given the amount of power needed to pry open a closed steel door, it very likely might also have an impact on the door frame. Carefully inspect all portions of the aperture while making repairs after vandalism or breaking and entering, not just the compromised region. Do you recall the saying that goes, “Doing the same thing over and again and expecting different results”? Consider if another door would be more appropriate for that aperture rather than substituting your doors with the exact same product. Perhaps a thicker gauge steel door should be bought in cases of vandalism or abuse. The ROI of the door may be greater even if the initial cost may be more since it will last so much longer. Since you took the time to read this post, you are probably going to maintain your facilities in an efficient and effective way. You have the chance to do that when you replace the doors. Is this the best door assembly for this aperture, you should ask yourself? For instance, badges are commonly required to enter buildings in hospitals and enterprises. 
Due to the cost of electronic locks, they are frequently first introduced just to a few doors while the others continue to use their manual locks. Those who need to carry badges and a set of keys find this cumbersome. If you need to replace any doors or hardware that has manual locks, now is a wonderful time to update to electronic locks. Steel doors have the advantage of being easily repaired; they may be welded, ground, and patched. This implies that repairs may often be done quickly, cheaply, and on the spot. Here are a few situations in which fixing the door rather than replacing it would save you money. Cleaning staff members have been known to wedge a mop or mop handle into a door to prop it open. This puts a lot of strain on the top hinge and over time might damage or even shatter the weld locations of the reinforcements for the hinge. As a consequence, the door sags, the distance is incorrect, or even worse, the opening becomes unusable. The cleaners need to be made aware of your “no broomsticks as door stops” policy as soon as possible. 
The door may then be fixed in approximately an hour by doing the following with the use of some fundamental welding techniques: Take away the door and the reinforcement’s hinge; drill weldable holes where the hinge reinforcement is located; Keep the hinge reinforcement in place using a clamp or hold it in place during plug welding; Rehang after priming, painting, and smoothing. One of the best things about steel, apart from its strength and durability, is that you can quickly weld a patch over a hole in the door if it is damaged in a manner that results in a hole developing since steel is so flexible. When patching or filling holes, be careful to follow any fire-rated issues and procedures, and always give your local authority having jurisdiction or the NFPA the benefit of the doubt. 
If the damage is limited to a dent and hasn’t reached the door’s outer layer, you may sand it down and paint it. Most of the time, nobody will notice that it has been mended. Wood, metal, and fiberglass doors typically lack the repair solutions mentioned above. Fiberglass won’t dent under high pressure; it will shatter. Aluminum is particularly difficult to fix in the workshop, much alone in the field, due to its increased tensile surface strength. If the veneer of a wood door is broken all the way through to the substrate, it may also not be fixed. Fortunately, most steel door repairs may be completed on-site using simple tools and knowledge. You may even wince a bit less the next time you see a child jump-kick your door if you keep that in mind.
