Threshold Damage

Owners of commercial units and business’ will know about the damage talked about in this blog post. We get a lot of calls from business owners that at some point that their doors are not closing properly and is now an issue when locking up or when the air conditioning or heating is on because it’s now escaping through the door that’s ajar. There are a few reason this can happen and this post aims to look at one in particular: Threshold Damage.

In case you are not aware, thresholds are the long pieces of metal you will see at the bottom of exterior doors, typically on commercial units. Due to wear from use and from the salt needed in our winters, thresholds can take a lot of abuse (as they’re meant to) and will eventually start to erode to the point where they actually become detrimental to the functionality of the door. The biggest item that can make threshold become an issue is salt damage from years of winters where either owners or their property management companies lay down salt to protect against ice forming. While this is necessary, it tends to cause a build up of salt and dirt around and underneath the threshold as people enter the building and given enough time to sit and erode the metal is will cause it to warp, break and bend in ways unfavourable to the doors function.

Once this happens, it can cause the doors to the units to not open or close properly, to the point where you have to use excessive force to operate it and even a heavy duty closer wouldn’t be enough to operate it. The only real solution is to get the thresholds removed and replaced as they have now come to the end of their use. Keep an eye out for the signs by seeing if the threshold has holes in it or appears jagged or that your doors are now not operating as they once were.