Automatic Doors for Senior Living and Nursing Homes

A door set at factory defaults moves too fast for most residents. We set opening speed, closing speed and hold-open for the people actually using the opening, and re-check those values at every visit because they drift as an operator ages.

Manual opening force with the power off is checked too — a power outage should not leave a community with doors residents cannot open at all.

Where a door has been set fast to keep a lobby warm or reduce draughts, we solve that with seals and vestibule sequencing rather than by leaving the door moving faster than the residents can manage.

Communities are best served on a fixed interval, usually quarterly on entrances and semi-annually on interior openings, because settings drift and residents will rarely report a door that has become slightly harder to use.

Each visit covers cycle testing, timing and force re-measurement, actuator function and position, sensor re-aiming for slow movement, arm and linkage wear, frame and threshold condition, and the delayed egress and wander management interfaces. The annual safety inspection is folded into one visit a year.

Replacing an entrance in a senior living community is planned around residents rather than around the contractor. Work is staged so the main route in and out is never closed, an alternative is signed and staffed where needed, and the opening is secure and weathertight at the end of every shift.

Where the existing frame is sound, the new header, operator and panels go into it and the work stays inside a short window. Where a community is upgrading several openings, they are done one at a time rather than as a single disruptive project.

The actuator is where most accessible openings fail in practice. A plate mounted too high, too far from the door, or requiring a firm press is unusable for a resident with limited grip strength, however well the operator behind it is set.

We position actuators by approaching the door the way a resident does — in a wheelchair, with a walker, with one hand occupied — and specify wave or touchless actuators where pressing is the barrier. Where an existing plate is in the wrong place, relocating it is usually a short visit and it changes who can use the door.

The calls we take most often here are actuators knocked out of alignment or position by wheelchairs and walkers, operators that have drifted faster than residents can manage, sensors that no longer detect slow movement, and courtyard doors that have become too heavy after a closer was tightened.

None of them present as a broken door. They present as residents quietly using a different route, or staff propping an opening that should be working. That is why these buildings benefit from a fixed interval rather than a call-out arrangement.

Standard sensor settings assume someone walking at normal pace. A resident approaching with a walker, or pausing in the doorway, can fall outside a detection pattern that would be perfectly adequate in an office.

We set detection zones deeper on the approach, extend hold-open times, and use presence detection that keeps holding while someone is still crossing the threshold. Those settings are re-checked at every visit, because a door that closes too early on a resident is the fault most likely to go unreported and most likely to cause harm.

Texas — Austin, Cedar Park, Cypress, Richardson, McKinney, Sherman, Paris. Connecticut — Hartford, New Haven, Danbury, Greenwich. Alabama — Birmingham.

Tell us the community and the openings, and we will plan the work around residents’ routines.