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More About Front & Garage Doors
Wicket Sizes & Options
By default, the garage is supposed to be a space for a car. But not necessarily. A lot of garages are used as utility rooms, hobby, recreation, or storage spaces. And the wicket is a perfect option if you considering a new sectional garage door. Even if you keep collectable or vintage cars in your garage the wicket will let you come in without opening the whole garage door and letting moisture, dust, or snow in. Imagine opening 2 sq. metres instead of 10 or more. So it is a good energy-saving means as well. The wicket itself has many options. First of all the size: standard size is 800 mm wide and 2,000 mm high. The wicket height actually is limited by the garage door opening height. The top of the wicket must be at least 100 mm lower than the opening headroom. Anyway, you can specify a custom wicket size which can be 660 – 1,200 mm wide and up to 2,300 mm high. Also, you can choose the wicket handing side. It can be a left-hand-reverse or right-hand-reverse opening. Please keep in mind that the wicket on the sectional garage door is opening outside only. In addition, you can specify the wicket position. Of course, there are some technical limitations depending on the width of the sectional garage door. The wider the garage door the more restrictions arise. All you need to know – sectional garage doors with the wicket can be made up to 7 metres wide. All wickets come with the automatic closer to keep the wicket shut. In addition, you can order closer with the ‘door-stay’ option which is convenient if you use wicket quite intensively and want to keep it open. For sectional garage doors with automation, we install a micro-switch to prevent opening garage door whilst wicket is open. It is a very useful safety feature and if you install a manually operated garage door with the wicket, please install a micro-switch to have a safe operation in case of later electric motor installation. Ryterna can equip wickets with the standard and 3-point locks. In addition, we offer high-security locks, locks with the outside knob handle, and anti-panic handle-bar inside. Among our customers window option or house number applique on the wicket is very popular. We offer two threshold options: standard and low. The standard is about 120 mm and the low is only 25 mm high. The low threshold is convenient if you pass through the wicket with the bike, trolley, or wheel-chair. A low threshold profile is made with the slope from both sides so the threshold crossing is easy and smooth. Unfortunately, a low threshold option is available only for doors up to 5 metres wide. 2 metres wide sectionals with 1.2 metre wide wicket Showroom door with wicket demo
Size
Handing
Hardware
Locking
Threshold
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New Design Options
Customers along with architects are constantly pushing the limits. They want front and garage doors to match the façade or overall design concept as much as possible. Special colours and custom glazing are not enough. So, we started to look for new innovative design solutions.
Contemporary house designs are based on glass, concrete, corten, steel, and timber. As a result, architects are asking for doors made of look-alike materials. As you know, modern high-performance doors have specific requirements like high thermal insulation, long service life, low maintenance, etc. Using original façade materials do not comply with these requirements. Luckily, cladding materials manufacturers are following trends as well. But there is one problem that always persists – how to bond the cladding panel with the door aluminium outside skin. Firstly, we can’t use any screws, rivets, or any fixings to keep the door appearance nice and tidy. Secondly, we can’t use strong glue due to mismatching thermal expansion coefficients for different materials. Looks like a trifle but it can cause big problems. Two firmly bonded panels with different thermal expansion coefficients will fall apart or damage each other as the ambient temperature changes. Finally, we developed specific adhesion technology to keep different materials together without affecting each other. Hence now we can offer contemporary design front doors with quality guaranteed. Even more, we can combine different cladding materials on the same door panel. Tempered glass gives almost 100% gloss. The back of the glass is painted with ceramic paint and heated to merge with the glass. Undoubtedly the most popular is black but we can paint it in almost any RAL colour as well. Moreover, we can mill and inlay with stainless metal appliques concrete or corten image panels. As a result, customers can get a unique front door matching overall house design without compromising performance and service life. Installing the door with an inlay handle is like a putting cherry on the top of the cake. Replaceable LED backlight with photo-sensors will show you ‘the direct way home’ during twilight.
Cladding Materials
Design Options
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Aluminium Front Doors with Portholes and Custom Shape Windows
Portholes are a very popular glazing option for garage doors. We offer three standard sizes of porthole windows along with the possibility to make custom size and shape windows. Many customers are asking for front doors with porthole windows to match the garage door design or just because they like the round shape. However, U-value requirements for garage doors are much lower than for front doors. 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 integrated into door leaf must have a good appearance and serve for a lifetime. That’s why almost all aluminium front door manufacturers offer different sizes but only rectangular windows. And only very few can offer front doors with the portholes. As you know, the warm edge space bar is an essential 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 a straight space bar into a circle without damaging it. 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. 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.
Triple Safety Glazing
Options
Conclusion
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Aluminium Front Doors with Corner Sidelights
Our customers are fond of aluminium front doors made by Ryterna. They appreciate our attention to details and innovative technical solutions. Certainly, custom design and size, possibility to choose any colour and lots of options make our customers happy. In other words, we are always glad to do something we never did before. And it helps us get better, improve the manufacturing process and make our assortment wider.
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 customers not completely satisfied.
How we do it
We use a special rebated corner post of white UPVC with three rectangular steel tubes inside as reinforcement. To get the uniform look we cover the corner post with the 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 the 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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Ultra-Thermo Sectional Door at Aviation Academy
Ryterna latest product – 80 mm thick insulated panels for sectional doors. Robust panels have perfect 0.28 W/m²K insulation. We gave ‘Ultra-Thermo’ name for doors made of 80 mm thick panels. Stunning 0.5 W/m²K overall U-value is one of the best on the market.
In the beginning, we designed ‘Ultra-Thermo’ Industrial doors for heated or refrigerated premises. The available range of widths up to 8 metres and heights up to 6 metres allow matching the most demanding specifications. 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. 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 to better appearance, we powder coated zinc hardware in white to match the interior.
Initially, Ryterna targeted mainly industrial customers, but now are getting into the household territory. Customers discovering the benefits of ‘Ultra-Thermo’ doors are installing them into their garages, workshops and utility rooms.
Glazed ‘Ultra-Thermo’ panels
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
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.
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Sectional Doors for Boat Garages
Sailing is a great pleasure and a hobby. But sometimes you have to leave your precious boat or yacht moored to a pier.
More and more boat owners living on the shore prefer to have boat garages rather than open wharf. A closed boat garage can provide better protection from the elements, birds, and burglary activity as well.
Lately, we started to get a lot of enquiries about boat garage doors. Actually, the boat garage door is very similar to the car garage door, but there are few specific requirements. 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 a 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. Customers can specify the 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 the servicing job is not a piece of cake. That is to say, performance and safety are always in the first place. Certainly, we can supply boat garage doors with the electric opener for 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.
Technical Issues
Design
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Clad Garage Doors
Ryterna offers a big variety of panel designs, colours and customisation options. But our customers, with the little help from the architects, are pushing the limits. And when you think that there is nothing more to be invented or designed an enquiry for something extraordinary comes.
One of such ‘exiles’ out of comfort zone was door cladding with different materials. Now it is in our standard product range. The most popular cladding material is okoume plywood. Okoume is the most water-resistant sort of hardwood. We can engrave okoume sheets to get the necessary image.
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 behavior. 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. Favorites 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 the 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 a ‘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.
Click here to read more about Ryterna sectional garage doors
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Glazed Garage Doors for Space Transformation
Recent Ryterna project – Vagabond winery facade at Battersea power station. Winery owners wanted to have glazing facade featuring easy transformation into open space cafe. In addition, the conventional entrance door matching the whole facade idea was necessary as well. The very important specification was low maintenance. Above all sectional door hardware had to be hidden or match the interior.
The shopfront divided by pillars into five different size spaces resulting in the whole layout solution. The biggest challenge for us was to get a uniform design across the whole facade. Consequently, we decided to use our 40 mm thick insulated aluminium profiles with clear scratch-proof acrylic double glazing. 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 to the 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 a rebated frame, four handlebars, pneumatic closers, and a transom window. Finally, we had to take care of the 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. Having installed a 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
Approach
Appearance
Benefits
