Hollow metal doors are the steel doors on back entrances, stairwells, warehouses, mechanical rooms and most corridors in commercial buildings. They last a long time, and when one finally fails it usually fails at the same places: the bottom of the door where water sits, the lock edge where it has been forced or slammed, and the hinge edge where the door has been hanging heavy for years.
Signs the door has had its day
- Rust through the bottom. An exterior steel door that sits in water at the threshold rusts from the bottom edge up. Once the skin has rusted through, it cannot be patched in a way that lasts.
- A torn or bowed lock edge. A door that has been pried, or slammed against a bad strike for years, bends at the lock edge, and the latch no longer meets the strike however the hardware is adjusted.
- A door that sags. A heavy door with worn hinges, or with hinge reinforcement that has torn loose inside the door, drops at the lock side and drags. New hinges help only if the door's own reinforcement is still sound.
- Dents and a delaminated face. A face sheet that has come away from the core, or a door that has been hit by carts and pallets until it is no longer flat, will not seal or latch reliably.
Keeping the frame
If the frame is square, solidly anchored and not rusted at the base, steel door installation in Atlanta usually means a new door ordered to fit it, and the frame stays. That is the less expensive and quicker job, because the wall is not touched. The new door has to match the frame exactly: its size, the hinge positions and sizes, the strike location and the lock preparation. We measure the frame, not the old door, because an old door may have been trimmed or rehung over the years.
Commercial door frame replacement
The frame goes too when it is bent, when its base is rusted away at the floor, when the strike jamb has been pried out of shape, or when the opening is changing size. In a stud wall the old frame can be cut out and a knock-down frame set in its place, with the drywall patched and painted around the new frame. In masonry or block walls, frames are usually set in the wall and grouted, so removing one means cutting it out and patching the wall around the new one, and it is usually the part of the job that takes longest.
What the order needs
- Size and handing. Width and height measured at the frame, and the handing: which side the hinges are on and which way the door swings, read from the outside of the opening.
- Gauge and core. Heavier gauge steel for exterior and high-use doors; a core chosen for the job, from honeycomb for interior doors to insulated or steel-stiffened cores for exterior and heavy-duty openings.
- Hardware preparation. Hinge, lock or exit device and closer preparation, so the hardware goes on without cutting the door on site.
- A fire rating, if the wall has one. A door in a rated wall must be a labeled door in a labeled frame, of the rating the opening needs, with hinges and latching hardware listed for it.
- Finish. Primed for painting on site, or factory finished; galvanized steel for exterior doors that see weather.
Time and cost
Standard sizes in a common gauge come quickly; doors with special sizes, vision lites, louvers or fire ratings are made to order and take longer. If the opening cannot wait, the old door is kept working or the opening is secured until the new one is hung. For how the frame, the hardware and the site add up in commercial metal door installation cost, see our article on commercial door installation cost.
We measure the frame, check its anchoring and its base, and tell you whether it can stay, in a free written estimate that lists the door, the frame and the hardware separately. We can usually come the same day when the schedule allows.