Replacing a Failed Commercial Aluminium Door: Survey, Spec, and Supply Timeline

The phone rings on a Monday morning. A retail unit, an office reception, a school lobby — wherever — has had its main aluminium entrance fail. The customer wants it open by the end of the week. The maintenance company has a ticket open and a margin to protect. Who fabricates the replacement, and how fast?

This post is the practical playbook for that situation, written from the supply side. If you run reactive door maintenance for commercial customers, this is what gets the door re-supplied without making the timeline your problem.

Hour 1: get to site, secure the asset

Standard reactive procedure — board up, secure the opening, document the failure. Two things we’d add from the fabrication side:

• Photograph everything before you remove anything. The full leaf face, the frame on both sides, the threshold, the head detail, the hardware (closer, lock body, hinges/pivots), and the failure point. The photos drive the replacement spec.
• Don’t dispose of the failed leaf yet. If you can’t tell the system from the photos alone, the failed unit is the easiest reference. We’d rather identify the system from a photo of the original than guess.

If the failure is glass-only and the frame is intact, you may not need a replacement leaf — just a re-glaze. Confirm before you order new fabrication.

Hour 2-4: the survey

A clean survey is what we need to fabricate. The minimum viable survey for a single-leaf commercial entrance:

• Outerframe size (head to threshold, jamb to jamb, inside-face to inside-face — measure three times, take the smallest)
• Leaf size (top to bottom, hinge edge to lock edge — measure the leaf, not the opening)
• Frame depth (how deep is the frame profile front-to-back?)
• Glass spec (thickness, IGU build-up, toughened/laminated)
• Threshold type (100mm, 150mm, drained — what’s there now?)
• Hardware schedule (lock type and cylinder, closer, hinge/pivot, panic bar, finger guard, kick plate)
• Hand of door (opening direction from inside the building)
• Finish — RAL colour or PPC reference. Take a colour photo in daylight.

Send all of that with the failure photos. If the survey is partial, we can sometimes fabricate from photos alone for a like-for-like — but the lead time gets longer because we need extra confirmations.

Hour 4-24: the quote

You send the survey, the photos, and a brief on what the customer needs (like-for-like or upgrade — security, thermal, accessibility?).

We respond within 24 hours with:

• A trade quote (price, lead time, what’s included)
• A CAD drawing of the proposed replacement leaf with sizes, threshold type and hardware schedule for sign-off
• Any deviations from the original we’re flagging — e.g. if the original looks like a 25-year-old system that’s not still in production, we’ll propose a current-system equivalent

You confirm the quote and sign off the CAD drawing. We start cutting.

Day 2-21: fabrication

Standard fabrication lead time is 21 days. The clock starts when we have a confirmed PO and a signed CAD.

For genuinely critical reactive jobs — the unit can’t trade, end-client is escalating, contract is on the line — we offer rush turnaround on a case-by-case basis. Rush typically means 7-14 days subject to component availability (some hardware is on extended lead time from the supplier — locks especially) and an expedition fee.

We don’t make rush a default offer because it disrupts the workshop schedule for every other customer. Use it when the asset failure is genuinely commercial-critical, not when the end-client is just impatient.

Day 21-22: dispatch and delivery

The replacement leaf (or full doorset, depending on what’s failed) leaves the workshop:

• Jig-tested to the survey dimensions
• Glazed and beaded — no on-site glazing required
• Labelled by opening reference
• Wrapped for transit
• Complete with all fixings, gaskets and hardware in the box

Delivery to your depot or directly to site. Most UK addresses on a 1-3 day pallet network depending on distance from Warrington.

Day 22-23: install

Your installer fits. Because the leaf has been jig-tested and the kit is complete, fit-time on a single-leaf commercial replacement is typically a half-day to a day on site. Multi-opening jobs scale linearly because everything is labelled.

If anything is off — wrong size, wrong threshold, wrong finish — call us before you alter anything. We’d rather remake a single component overnight and air-freight it than have you absorb a rework hit on a billed job.

Margin protection — the hidden costs to watch

Reactive supply margin lives or dies on three things:

1. Survey errors. A 5mm survey error becomes a 30-minute on-site adjustment, becomes a half-day rework, becomes an apology to the end-client. Measure three times.
2. Hardware substitution. If the original lock cylinder isn’t still made, the replacement cylinder may need a new keep on the frame. Tiny detail, big rework if the keep doesn’t match. We flag substitutions on the CAD drawing — sign them off knowing the implication.
3. Finish mismatch. RAL numbers age. A 10-year-old RAL 7016 doesn’t look identical to a fresh RAL 7016 powder coat. For visible facades, your end-client may notice. Either accept the variance, repaint adjacent units to match, or budget for finish-blending where possible.

The fabricator can mitigate all three with clear quoting, but the maintenance contractor controls the survey. Get that right and the rest of the chain is straightforward.

How we work with maintenance contractors

Reactive replacement is one of our core trade segments. We’re set up for survey-driven enquiries, single-opening orders, and rush options when the unit is genuinely critical. No minimum order. We don’t sell to homeowners or end-clients — your relationship with the customer is yours.

If you’re a door maintenance company looking for a reliable fabrication supplier, send us a sample survey from a recent reactive call and we’ll quote it. That’s the easiest way to see whether our turnaround and pricing match how you actually run jobs. No commitment, no minimum.