Making portholes for garage doors do not require warm edge space bars or even double glazing. Meanwhile, thermal insulation requirements for front doors are totally different. All new construction products must match requirements for sustainability, passive house, safety, security and many more specifications. Therefore, front door glazing is not ‘a piece of cake’.

Triple Safety Glazing

Triple safety glazing integrated into door leaf must have good appearance and serve for a lifetime. That’s why almost all aluminium front door manufacturers offer different size but only rectangular windows. And only very few can offer front doors with the portholes.

As you know the warm edge space bar is a very important part of the glazing. Glass panes are separated and fixed together into a single glazing block by using space bars. Straight bars are perfect for rectangular shape windows. When it comes to the round shape, we must bend the bar to copy the shape of the window. Of course, the diameter must be big enough not to break the space bar. Unfortunately, front doors are up to 1.3 metres wide and the porthole could be approx. 50-60 cm in diameter. Accordingly, 60 cm diameter is not enough to turn straight space bar into a circle without breaking it into pieces.

Options

There is another option – to convert the round shape into a regular octagon, decagon or even dodecagon shapes. Consequently, the more corners and sides you have the more pieces of space bars you must combine into one. You can imagine having 8, 10 or even 12 obtuse angle corners instead of 4 right angle corners for a standard rectangular shape. However, the increasing number of connection and adhesion points raises the risk of glazing block failure. It can lose its airtightness which means a significant loss of thermal insulation and the emerging of fog inside glazing. Moreover, if you create many space bar connection corners the inside of the gazing won’t look pretty enough. Accordingly, for triple glazing, we need to put two space bars.

Conclusion

As a consequence, we went somewhere in between. Unfortunately, we can’t disclose all the technological tricks. Anyway, our customers can enjoy having front doors with triple glazed portholes or custom shape windows. Using this way we can offer front door designs also for old buildings to get an old image with modern technologies. Undoubtedly ‘old-good’ appearance combined with modern performance will increase the life quality and property value.

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As a result,customers knowing this are sending various bizarre projects. Recently, we started to get the enquiries for the front doors with sidelights. Looks like nothing unusual except the corner sidelight. We make aluminium door jamb using special aluminium profiles with thermal break. Profiles are designed to form a robust jamb frame. For example, we can join a sidelight frame and door jamb into one piece and get a firm structure capable to support door leaf and heavy triple glazing. Unfortunately, the whole system is designed to be joined in a straight line but not in corners.

Issues

Therefore we had to find ‘missing element’ to connect frames at the right angle. Firstly the side of the profile has no good appearance and we can’t leave it exposed. Secondly, as was stated above, door profiles are designed to be joined in a row. Above all, such a complex installation must have some space for tolerance. Even for very experienced installers, joining two big and heavy structures at an angle could be complicated. In other words, the smallest gap left after installation can spoil the image and leave customer not completely satisfied.

How we do it

We use special rebated corner post of white UPVC with three rectangular steel tubes inside as reinforcement. To get the uniform look we cover corner post with aluminium profile which is powder coated the same colour as the door. Firstly, installers have to install the corner post. Usually, they fix it with the brackets to the ceiling or lintel on top and to the floor or aluminium cill profile on the bottom. Due to 15 millimetre wide trim edges on the post, installers have space for tolerance and perfect sealing. So secondly panes of the corner sidelights can be installed. As corner post has three steel 2 millimetres thick rectangular tubes, the fixation is fast and easy, but very reliable and strong.

Customers install corner sidelights on new-built and renovated houses as well. The sunlight coming into the lobby from different sides creates a very cosy atmosphere. Corner sidelights give architects extra space for creativity as well.

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Glazed ‘Ultra-Thermo’ panels

As a refinement, we started developing glazed panels with proper thermal insulation. Many businesses use the benefits of glazed doors to showcase their products and services. However, standard glazed doors due to their construction have poor thermal insulation. So, there was always a question: beauty or efficiency.

We took part in the ‘Aviation Academy’ project with glazed ‘Ultra-Thermo’ sectional door installation. Architects sent the enquiry for glazed sectional door 6 metres wide and 7 metres high. They needed the door to move a flight simulator into the building.

As you know, a simulator is a highly complex and sophisticated machine. Therefore, there are strict regulations for ambient temperature and humidity. As a result, architects presented quite a long list of specifications.
We decided to offer our newly developed 80 mm thick glazed ‘Ultra-Thermo’ panels featuring with scratch-proof triple glazing and 30 mm thick thermal break. In addition, we fit the whole perimeter with improved double rubber sealing.

Technical Solutions

Due to headroom limitations, we made custom-designed door tracks. The only solution for that size door and very low headroom was to use a direct drive system. Usually, sectional door balance and smooth operation are achieved by torsion springs.  Direct drive means that the gear has no torsion springs and the cables are wound on a 6-inch diameter shaft driven by a 3-phase electric motor. Above all, the door is equipped with safety edges for easy and safe operation.

We painted the door to match the building façade colour. In addition for better appearance, we powder coated zinc hardware in white to match the interior.
Finally, we managed to achieve an overall U-value = 1.9 W/m²·K which is incomparably better than the same design of conventional 40 mm thick sectional glazed door.
Consequently ‘Ultra-Thermo’ 80 mm thick glazed sectional door is a perfect choice if you want to showcase your business and save on energy costs. It could be a perfect choice for showrooms, workshops, services, car dealerships or even cafes.

Technical Issues

First of all, it is corrosion protection, especially for doors on the sea. Lakes and rivers with the freshwater are not as aggressive as salty seawater but anyway iron parts are affected. Therefore Ryterna manufactures whole hardware of stainless steel and aluminium. Usually, we make panels of aluminium profiles. But some customers prefer a ‘sandwich’ type panels or a combination of both.

Secondly, the door is ‘landing’ on the water. Due to missing solid basis, we have to make a few technical upgrades compared with a conventional garage door.

Also, it is necessary to take into account how enclosed the harbour or bay is. Consequently to resist wave or wind pressure we install additional reinforcement profiles on the panels.

Usually, the door goes down to the water level. However, in most cases, the water level is changing. In this situation, we manufacture the door to match the lowest water level. One or two bottom panels we make of aluminium profiles with mesh or perforated aluminium sheet infill. When the water level rises the bottom panels submerge under the water. Perforated sheet or mesh let the water go through without damaging the door and keeping water level the same on both sides of the door.

Design

Customer can specify design and colour. So we have to look for the best solution if the boat garage door must match the architectural setting. Because the opening is above the water, installation, maintenance and servicing job is not a piece of cake. That is to say, performance and safety are always in the first place.

Certainly, we supply boat garage doors with the openers easy operation with a remote control handset.

In short, having a boat garage can save your time on boat maintenance and spend it on your hobby.

The boat garage door is with 2 bottom panels going under the water to keep beavers off the boat garage.

Clad Options

However, customers are asking for doors to be clad with different types of timber or façade sheets. The reason is to get uniform house design, to match listed building requirements or just ‘I like it’. We face two main problems with the cladding materials supplied or specified by the customers.

Most importantly we have to combine cladding material with the panels. There are two different materials with different reactions to temperature and humidity. If combined into one structure they can cause unpredictable behaviour. Furthermore, we have to get perfect matching of the cladding layout on the garage door with the cladding layout on the façade. There are lots of factory-made types of cladding materials. Usually, they manufacture sheets using composite materials, cement, metal, etc. Timber planks as a cladding material are very popular as well. Favourites are cedar and larch, but lately, pine and ash thermo-wood are gaining popularity.

Technical Solutions

Above all, there are few additional brain teasers to be sorted out – the cladding material thickness and weight. To retain perfect performance we have to make some changes in technical design.

Sometimes cladding material can weight up to 20 kg per sq. metre. So by cladding garage door 6 metres wide and 2.4 metres high we add 288 kilograms of additional weight. Actually it is more than the weight of the garage door itself.

Even more for our most demanding customers, we offer ‘façade-flush’ design. Façade-flush means that the façade surface and the garage door surface are on the same plane. Sometimes looking at the house you can hardly spot where the garage door is. The whole façade looks like one uniform plane and the garage door is ‘visible’ only when it is open.

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Approach

We decided to fill two narrow spaces on both sides with fascia panels made to look like a sectional door. Fascias are fixed and serve as a usual showcase. The biggest two openings we closed with sectional doors powered by 3-phase electric motors, control systems and double safety edges for safe operation and smooth performance. Closing the central opening dedicated for entrance door was the most complicated task. Finally, we decided to install Ryterna double side-hinged door made of the same glazed panels. The door is fitted out with rebated frame, four handlebars, pneumatic closers and transom window.

Appearance

Finally, we had to take care of appearance. We powder coated doors and fascias from outside and inside. In addition, sectional door tracks are powder coated as well to match the interior. The nastiest part of the sectional door is the springs on the shaft. Along with brackets, spring and cable break safety devices they create a very industrial and rude image. Unfortunately, we can’t paint these parts. Therefore we made covers to hide all that stuff. Interior colour powder-coated covers, ‘disappear’ in the interior.

Benefits

Having installed glazed sectional door rather than ‘normal’ showcase business owners can easily transform closed space into open and vice-versa. Whilst sitting inside the cafe customers can enjoy nice weather. Shop and cafe owners can roll out their businesses on to the sidewalk and get more customers inside.

Click here to read more about Ryterna sectional garage doors