John Hoskins House, Haywards Heath
Disabled ramp access door automation
The main entrance to this social housing block was already fitted with an automatic door, however the location of the flats where two of the wheelchair users lived, mean't they needed to open 4 internal fire doors just to get to there. The side door to the block was in the same corridor as the 2 flats, so it made sense to have that door automated instead of 4 of the internal doors.
The bottom panels of the door and side-screen were made from a GRP/ Plywood composite, making them tough and resistant to being kicked.
The side entrance already had a ramp leading up to it, but it wasn't compliant with current regulations, so it had to be upgraded. This was carried out by the housing associations own work crew prior to the door replacement.
We removed the old aluminium entrance door as it was in very bad condition and also opened towards the existing fob entry reader.
We fitted a new aluminium entrance door with a combination of features from our social housing style doors and a basic commercial entrance.
From our discussions with the surveyor from the Housing Association, we discoverd that the block had previously suffered high degrees of vandalism and as such the door would need to incorporate features that make it vandal resistant as well as function as a wheelchair entrance.
The new door incorporated many of the features we include as standard on our social housing doors but with some slight changes for the automation and equality act compliance.
A stainless steel, parallel arm configuration was used to prevent the arm being pulled by vandals. Standard automatic door closers have an arm that protrudes out from the door at 90 degress and makes an easy target for vandals.
Dual magnetic locking was used to secure the door. which locks the door securly with no moving parts to get jammed, glued or broken.
Stainless Steel handles were used as they are hard-wearing and vandal resistant
The proximity fob reader was moved further away from the door to make it easier to use from a wheelchair