 | Bob Crager of Lewis Street Glass is a 26 year veteran in the glass business. Lewis Street Glass is a leading Wichita Glass company, serving the entire Wichita/Sedgwick County area since 1919. They do anything and everything having to do with glass, both residential and commercial. They also do Auto glass. They are located at 743 South Market, facing Kellogg on the South, and you can reach them by phone at (316) 263-8259. You can email Bob Crager at bcrager@lewisstreetglass.com |
Home Improvement
2013-05-29 10:49:55
Glass front doors for commercial building?
Q-What kind of commercial glass doors should I consider using for my new business building?
A-Let’s talk for a little bit about the things that are going to be important to you and your business going forward. Things such as the physical aesthetic appearance…which is the look of the business that the customer gets as a first impression of who and what you and your business are trying to project to them. Is security an issue for you? It certainly is for most businesses. Do you need light or heavy security, during what hours of the day? Are you a 24-7 business, or do you have “open” hours, and then remain closed during the rest of the day or night? Do you have “walk-in” trade, or are you an office/warehouse facility? All of these questions, and some others, should enter into your plan for the entrance of your new facility! Even if you have little or no “foot traffic” trade, you probably have ‘drive-by’ trade. Even people driving past your facility will develop some idea about who you are from what they see at your entrance to the business.
Will you have an outside “lobby” arrangement, or will the customer walk directly into the interior of your retail or office rooms? If a lobby is in the plans, you’ll want to use some very high grade commercial glass & metal doors that are well designed and built to hold up in the face of all of the changing weather conditions and higher than normal winds experienced here in Kansas. Intense heat, and brutal cold will eventually take a toll of some kind on the most well built exterior doors and windows. If your new building is located in Kansas with considerations for the extremes of Kansas weather, the lobby will be, more than likely, heated and cooled to some degree, which will help to stabilize the temperatures of the metals and the glass, extending the useful life and durability of these fixtures.
When your customers drive or walk up to the front of your building, is their first impression of your company important to you? There are many different designs, different combinations of materials that will assist in that first impression…tinted glass, Low-E coated glass, many different colors and shades of tint can give your customer a great feel for walking inside your front doors. Sometimes an “airlock” arrangement which controls the inflow and outflow of air is incorporated into the design. The direction the front doors face should be considered when deciding the answers to a lot of the pertinent questions about commercial doors for your new business building.
There are commercial glass doors, commercial steel doors, impact commercial doors, roll-up commercial doors…an amazing list of choices for your consideration, all based upon your specific needs! The choice for your own business should be important to you if, for no other reason, you’ll be looking at your choices for quite a long period of time, and you don’t want to feel bad every time you see it because you tried to cut a corner when you installed whatever you installed. In Commercial windows and doors, it’s pretty important not to try to save money by cutting corners in these areas, unless there are no other choices for you.
Some recommendations that might help you with your decisions are:
Choose the strongest, most secure commercial doors for the exterior doors. The material make-up of a commercial door will impact the level of security it can provide, as well as the maintenance and upkeep it will require. Commercial steel doors offer the most security, but many business owners find wood doors and commercial glass doors more aesthetically pleasing, depending on the particular individual application. From security and ease of access to aesthetics and first impressions, interior and exterior commercial doors play an important role in the success of most business operations. Remember, commercial doors not only provide the public’s first impression of your business, but they also serve such purposes as managing traffic flow, securing work environments, and climate control. Automatic sliding commercial doors provide ease of access for the needs of some businesses. Consider the benefits of automatic sliding commercial doors in environments where customers have to push shopping carts, or carry items inside and out. Automatic doors also cater well to handicapped patrons. Revolving or automatic sliding doors can help keep your lobby climate controlled and can also help with the control of foot traffic by limiting the number of people entering the building at once. Commonly used in the restaurant industry, impact commercial doors can swing both ways to allow traffic to flow in and out easily. These swinging doors also make a good choice as commercial entry doors for loading docks.
There are about as many different choices for commercial glass doors as there are designs of new buildings. If you have a chance to do it from scratch, do it right the first time. If you’re retrofitting the entrance area of an existing building, you can pick and choose from a wide array of materials, glass and metal, wood, and many more. A short sit-down meeting with your local glass dealer who specializes in commercial doors and windows might just be a good first step, and could take the brain damage out of the process for you. Some information was researched from the worldwide web…More next month…
