Read this before you copy any number out of this page. Every figure quoted here comes from publicly available operator manuals, installer guidance and published summaries of EN 16005, DIN 18650, BS 7036 and the ANSI/BHMA A156 family. None of them is a threshold you should paste into a specification, a purchase order or a risk assessment. Standards are reissued, editions differ by country, and the version that binds you is the one adopted by the authority having jurisdiction over your building. Use this article to learn the shape of the problem, then go and read the edition that applies to you.
We have written elsewhere about what an automatic sliding door is. This is a different question. An automatic swing doors manufacture enquiry sounds like a request for a product, and most suppliers will answer it as if it were. It is not. Nobody manufactures an automatic swing door. Three separate industries manufacture three separate things, they meet for the first time in a finished doorway, and the thing people call "safety features" is not a list of components you can order — it is a set of numbers that the assembled door either satisfies or does not.
That distinction matters for one practical reason: most of those numbers are fixed by the door leaf, and the door leaf is the first thing that gets manufactured and the last thing anyone thinks to blame. By the time a safety engineer is appointed to carry out a risk assessment, the leaf mass, the leaf width, the glass build, the hinge geometry and the profile gaps are already frozen in aluminium. Everything that follows is an attempt to make a machine behave safely on top of a decision that was made months earlier on a different drawing, by a different party, for a different reason.
An automatic swing entrance is assembled from three scopes of supply that almost never sit in one quotation. Understanding who owns what is the fastest way to work out who is going to be asked to pay for a problem.
| Who | What they actually make | What they can prove with a document | What they cannot answer |
|---|---|---|---|
| The door system manufacturer | The leaf, the frame, the thermal break, the glazing rebate, the seals, the hinge seats | Alloy and temper, wall thickness, insulation strip material, sectional drawings, declared thermal values for a stated configuration | Which operator, which sensor, what the closing force will be on site, whether the doorset passes |
| The operator manufacturer | The drive, the control board, the arm or slide channel, the programme | Leaf mass and leaf width limits, inertia limits, cycle testing, conformity to a named standard | Whether your leaf is inside those limits — that depends on the leaf, which they did not make |
| The installer and commissioner | The assembled, adjusted, measured, documented doorset | Measured forces, measured times, sensor coverage, log book, commissioning record | Anything about a leaf that sags, drags or expands after they leave |
The third row is where automatic doors actually succeed or fail, and it is the row that buyers spend the least time specifying. A door that was never commissioned to the opening it was fitted to is one of the most commonly reported findings on a first service visit: installed, powered up, left on factory settings. An operator that has never been told how heavy the leaf is cannot know how hard to push it.
Swing door operators are not rated by weight. They are rated by mass moment of inertia, and the published relationship is disarmingly simple:
J = (1/3) · m · b²
J is the mass moment of inertia about the hinge axis in kilogram metres squared, m is the leaf mass in kilograms, and b is the leaf width in metres. This is the formula printed in swing door operator installation literature, alongside a limit such as J maximum 65 kg·m².
Read the formula once and the whole specification problem changes shape. Mass enters it once. Width enters it squared. A leaf that is ten percent heavier costs you ten percent of your inertia budget; a leaf that is ten percent wider costs you about twenty-one percent. If you are fighting to stay inside an operator rating, narrowing the leaf is roughly twice as effective per unit of change as lightening it.
You can see the formula hiding inside published product data. One swing door operator's installation manual gives maximum leaf mass against leaf width like this:
| Leaf width (m) | Published max leaf mass (kg) | Mass implied by J = 65 kg·m² | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.6 | 540 | about 542 | A very narrow leaf can be enormously heavy and still swing |
| 0.8 | 300 | about 305 | Still generous — most entrances sit here |
| 1.0 | 200 | 195 | Comfortable for a large glazed leaf |
| 1.2 | 130 | about 135 | Now the glass build starts to decide the answer |
| 1.4 | 100 | about 99 | A wide leaf is on a tight diet |
The published curve and the formula agree to within a kilogram or two at every width. That is not a coincidence and it is not a rounding trick — it is the same physics printed two ways. The practical consequence is the one that catches projects out: the same door family that passes comfortably at 1000 mm can fail at 1200 mm without a single component changing. Same alloy, same glass, same hinges. Only the width moved, and width is squared.
In a thermally broken aluminium swing leaf, the glass is the heaviest single item, and the usual industry rule of thumb is about 2.5 kg per square metre per millimetre of glass thickness. Take a 1000 by 2400 mm leaf with a 6 + 12A + 6 insulated unit. Two 6 mm panes give roughly 30 kg per square metre; over 2.4 square metres of glazing that is about 70 kg of glass on its own. Add the aluminium frame, the thermal break, the hardware and the seals and you are commonly somewhere between 100 and 130 kg.
Run that through the formula. At 1000 mm wide and 120 kg, J is about 40 kg·m² — comfortably inside a 65 limit. Widen the same specification to 1200 mm, where the leaf itself is now heavier because the frame and glass grew too, say 145 kg, and J becomes roughly 70 kg·m². Over the line. Nothing about the door got worse. It got wider.
This is why "can you automate this door" is not a question that can be answered from a product photograph. It is answered by two numbers — leaf width and leaf mass — and those two numbers belong to whoever specified the door.
Here is the part that almost nobody joins up. The leaf width and leaf mass do not only decide which operator you buy. The same two numbers appear again in the safety standard as the minimum opening and closing times, and again in the energy limit. Three separate requirements, three separate tables, one underlying quantity.
| Where it appears | What it is called | What it constrains | Who is stuck with the consequence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operator data sheet | Mass moment of inertia, J | Which operator model you are allowed to buy at all | The person who sized the opening |
| Safety standard, low energy path | Kinetic energy of the moving leaf, commonly capped at 1.69 J | How fast the leaf is allowed to move | The commissioner, who must programme it |
| Safety standard, annex of time values | Minimum opening and closing time, tabulated against leaf width and leaf mass | How slow the leaf is obliged to be | Everyone waiting at the door |
Published summaries of EN 16005 give the low energy time table in this form: minimum time in seconds, by leaf width in millimetres against leaf mass in kilograms.
| Leaf width | 50 kg | 70 kg | 90 kg | 110 kg | 130 kg | 150 kg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 750 mm | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 4.0 | 4.5 |
| 850 mm | 3.0 | 3.5 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.5 | 5.0 |
| 1000 mm | 3.5 | 4.0 | 4.5 | 5.0 | 5.5 | 5.5 |
| 1200 mm | 4.0 | 4.5 | 5.5 | 6.0 | 6.5 | not listed |
| 1400 mm | 4.5 | 5.5 | 6.0 | not listed | not listed | not listed |
Now put the two published tables side by side. At 1200 mm, the operator's leaf mass table stops at 130 kg — and the safety standard's time table also stops at 130 kg. At 1400 mm, the operator table stops at 100 kg, and the time table stops at 100 kg. At 1300 mm, both stop at 110 kg. Two independently published documents run out at the same mass for the same width, three times running. We are not going to tell you why they agree to the kilogram. We are going to tell you that they do, and that the consequence is identical whichever one you happen to read first: there is a corner of the width-and-mass grid where "automatic" stops being an available option on the low energy path.
That corner is not exotic. A wide, tall, thermally broken aluminium leaf with a heavy insulated unit is exactly the kind of door a hotel lobby or a hospital entrance wants, and it is exactly the kind of door that lands near the edge of the table. The architect draws the opening for the way it looks. The operator is then expected to make it safe.
Most of the safety conversation about automatic doors is about sensors, and sensors are genuinely good at one thing: they can see a moving adult in the swing path. They are much worse at the hazards that actually hurt people, because several of those hazards are not in the swing path at all.
| Hazard zone | Who gets hurt | Can a sensor solve it? | So who has to solve it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leading edge, closing | Anyone stepping through | Yes — presence sensing or a pressure-sensitive edge | Operator manufacturer plus commissioner |
| Sweep path, opening | Anyone standing beside the leaf | Yes, with a sensor on the swing side | Operator manufacturer plus commissioner |
| Rear edge against adjacent structure | Anyone walking behind the leaf | Sometimes — often better solved by geometry | Whoever set the leaf width and the reveal |
| Hinge side finger trap | Children, overwhelmingly | No. The gap is behind the axis of rotation and invisible to every overhead device | The door system manufacturer — profile geometry or a physical guard |
That last row is the one to take to your next design meeting. The hinge side of an automatic swing door is a crushing hazard that no radar, no infrared curtain and no presence sensor on the planet can detect, because the trap closes on the far side of the pivot and the sensor is looking at the room. Summaries of the current edition of EN 16005 describe finger protection for swing doors as a specific requirement, and installer guidance consistently identifies the hinge area as one of the highest injury risks, particularly for children, with protection typically expected over the lower part of the door.
The tools available for it are not electronic. Published guidance on the standard lists the protective measures as mechanical guards, barriers, safety distances, force limitation, electro-sensitive or pressure-sensitive devices, and low energy movement. For the hinge gap the workable answers are almost always the first three, and all three are decided on a sectional drawing:
The wider point in the current edition of the standard is worth stating plainly, because it changes how you plan an entrance: the preferred solution is a non-contact route — an arrangement where a person can pass through without touching any moving part at all, achieved with physical separation rather than with detection. Detection is what you fall back on when you cannot separate.
The single most useful sentence in automatic door safety is also the shortest: a sensor that detects motion will not reliably detect a person who has stopped moving. Microwave and radar devices are excellent at seeing an approaching adult and poor at seeing someone standing still in the doorway. Infrared and active presence devices behave differently again. This is why high-specification entrances use combined or dual technology, and why installers test with reference bodies rather than by walking through the door.
Published descriptions of the test method describe two reference bodies. One is a box-shaped form roughly 0.7 by 0.3 by 0.2 metres, with a deliberately awkward surface: very low diffuse reflectance on the top and two sides, very high on the other two, so that a device cannot pass by simply being tuned to one finish. The other is a black elastomer block of a specified hardness, used to represent an obstacle on the floor or against a wall. The door is expected to stop or reverse before it makes contact. There is a quiet lesson in the dimensions of the first one: it is roughly the size of a small adult, and noticeably larger than a small child.
Two distances recur in published guidance and both are worth putting on a drawing. Detection should happen early enough that the door is fully open in time, commonly quoted as at least one metre away, and one and a half metres on escape routes. And where an automatic swing door opens against the direction of travel, published guidance for swing doorsets calls for a clear depth of at least 1000 mm in front of the fully open leaf — because a leaf that opens towards you removes the space you were standing in, and a sensor cannot give it back.
In the North American system the split runs between ANSI/BHMA A156.10, which covers full power pedestrian doors that open on approach, and A156.19, which covers power assist and low energy doors that open in response to a knowing act such as pressing a plate. In Europe and the UK the comparable references are EN 16005 and, for the UK, BS 7036 and DIN 18650 in German-speaking markets. The names differ; the trade is the same everywhere.
| Aspect | Low energy path | Full power path | Why the difference matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| How it is triggered | A knowing act — push plate, switch, wave | Automatic detection of an approach | Determines which users can operate it unaided |
| Speed | Slow by design; tabulated minimum times | Faster | Slow is the safety mechanism, not a defect |
| Sensor requirement | Reduced — low energy movement is often not additionally protected | Sensor arrays on approach and swing sides | This is where the cost difference lives |
| Residual risk | Must still be assessed for frail, elderly and disabled users | Addressed by the sensing system | "Low energy" does not mean "low risk to everyone" |
Published force figures attached to the low energy path give a flavour of how deliberately gentle it is: a force to prevent the door from stopping on the order of 67 N, a manual opening force after power failure on the order of 90 N, and a kinetic energy cap of 1.69 J. On the manual side, published guidance states that in the event of power loss or drive failure it must be possible to release a latch and swing the leaf open by hand within stated force limits, applied at the main closing edge and measured perpendicular to it. Some operator data also allows a static closing force of up to 150 N where the gap at the main closing edge is 8 mm or less.
Two practical cautions. First, low energy is a choice about the door's behaviour, and it is not free — you are buying a slower entrance. On the tabulated times, a heavy wide leaf can be obliged to take six seconds or more to open. Second, the standard is generally understood not to be retrospective: doorsets installed before the changeover date of the current edition are not automatically required to be upgraded, though applying current safeguards is regarded as good practice. Ask your adviser which edition applies to your building and when it was installed.
If you read one section of this article, read this one. It is the mechanism by which a safe door becomes an unsafe door without anyone deciding to make it unsafe.
Automatic swing doors are fitted with force limitation: if the leaf meets resistance, it stops or reverses. It is the safety feature that does the most work in the most situations. It is also the feature that gets quietly defeated, and the sequence is always the same.
Published service-provider reporting consistently describes closing force above specification as among the most common findings on a first inspection, and notes that it creeps up gradually so that staff acclimatise to it. The same sources describe the mirror-image failure: a presence sensor aimed slightly at the floor, or desensitised to stop nuisance reopening, which now also fails to see people.
One published installer guide puts the underlying point in a single sentence that deserves to be on every specification: an automatic operator is not a remedy for a warped door or worn-out hinges, and those must be rectified first, otherwise the operator is forced to work against constant resistance. Every step in the chain above starts with a door defect, not an operator defect. Fixing the leaf fixes the force limiter. Turning up the force limiter hides the leaf.
There is an uncomfortable organisational truth here too. The party that can fix the leaf (the door supplier) and the party that can adjust the operator (the service technician) are usually different companies, and the technician is the one holding the screwdriver on the day the door will not close. If the specification does not say what happens in that situation, the cheapest available action on the day will be taken.
Interior and exterior automatic swing doors look identical in a catalogue and behave completely differently in service, because an exterior leaf has two extra loads that never appear in a showroom.
Wind. A gust on the face of a large glazed leaf is a real load that the operator must overcome to close and latch. This is why exterior-rated operators are described in terms such as wind load control that monitors driving speed and adjusts it, and why at least one published product is rated for wind loads and another describes electronic latching action over the final degrees of closing. Published product literature for a heavy-duty swing operator also gives a wind-load-control figure of up to 150 N at the main closing edge when configured for the higher energy mode. The practical consequence: an operator that is adequate for the leaf's weight may still be inadequate for the leaf's area.
Stack pressure. In a sealed, mechanically ventilated building the pressure difference between inside and outside can assist or resist the leaf, and it changes with season, with system operation and with the position of other doors. Published operator literature describes stack pressure compensation as a function that counteracts positive, negative and suddenly changing pressure to keep door speed consistent. Tall lobbies and deep-plan buildings are the worst cases. This is not something you can size from a catalogue either; it has to be commissioned on site, in the season you care about, which is a scheduling problem as much as an engineering one.
Two more geometry decisions that are made long before the operator arrives:
An automatic swing door on an escape route has to satisfy two contradictory requirements: it is a machine in normal use and a manual door in an emergency. Published summaries of the standard describe swing doors on escape routes as needing to be openable by hand within a stated force, and doorsets with a break-out function as needing to allow the leaf or side panel to be pushed out in the escape direction within a higher force limit, commonly quoted at 220 N, after which the door should stop. In the North American accessibility framework, an egress door without standby power is expected to provide a minimum clear break-out opening in emergency mode — commonly quoted as 32 inches.
Note the word clear. A nominal 36 inch entry door does not deliver thirty-six inches of clear opening once you subtract the leaf itself, the stops, and the hardware that stands proud of the face. The requirement is measured on the opening you can actually walk through, not on the number in the product name. If your clear width is short, an operator will not fix it — and a good installer will tell you that before quoting rather than after.
Service-provider reporting lists break-out that will not break out as a recurring first-inspection finding, with the usual causes being paint, seizure or obstruction. It is described as the finding that matters most on an egress opening and gets noticed least. Of all the things on an automatic entrance, this is the one that only fails on the day everything else has already gone wrong.
There is a category of safety feature that does not exist in any factory. It is created on site, by a technician with a gauge, and if nobody does it then it simply is not there — even though every component in the doorway is brand new and certified.
| Commissioning action | What it produces | What it costs to skip |
|---|---|---|
| Measure and record opening and closing forces with a calibrated device | Numbers that can be compared to the specification at the next visit | Nobody can tell whether the door has drifted |
| Verify sensor coverage from both directions, including the swing side | Proof that the non-contact route or the detection field is real | An unmonitored arc where the leaf can strike someone |
| Test break-out and emergency release | Confirmed egress performance | Discovered during an evacuation |
| Apply safety signage on both sides at the specified height band | Users are warned the door is powered | The cheapest item on the list and the most commonly missing |
| Open the log book and hand it over | The single document that answers "was this door safe?" | No record means no way to demonstrate anything after an incident |
Published guidance places signage on both sides of the door at a height band commonly quoted as 1300 to 1600 mm from the floor, and several operator manuals carry a removable annual inspection panel on the safety label — a date and an inspector number, written on the door itself. That is a design worth noticing: the compliance record is attached to the product, not filed in an office.
One more commissioning function worth asking about by name: several modern operators perform a self-learning or teach-in cycle that measures the leaf's inertia and weight rather than trusting a data entry. If your operator does this, ask to see the recorded values. If it does not, ask what leaf mass was programmed and where that number came from.
The industry's own answer to automatic door safety is not a better sensor. It is a two-part routine: a short daily check performed by the owner or the responsible person, and a full annual inspection by a qualified inspector. That split exists because the failure mode is drift, and drift is invisible to everyone except someone who checks on purpose.
Published daily check procedures for swing doors follow a simple pattern: approach at a normal pace and confirm the door starts to open in time; stand still in the opening and confirm it does not close on you; stand clear and confirm it stays open for a meaningful dwell before closing smoothly; repeat from the other side for two-way traffic; check the floor area for trip hazards; confirm the signage is present and legible; and have a qualified inspector attend at least annually. Low energy doors have their own version, with an emphasis on slow, impact-free motion in both directions and a minimum hold-open period.
| Reported finding on a first visit | Why it happens | Whose fault it usually is |
|---|---|---|
| Closing force above specification | Drags were compensated by raising the force | Shared — a leaf problem converted into an operator setting |
| Presence sensor aimed at the floor | Reflective flooring, a moved mat, or a desensitisation to stop nuisance reopening | Building operations, then the technician who turned it down |
| Missing or illegible safety decals | Removed by cleaning and never replaced | Nobody in particular — which is why it never gets fixed |
| Break-out will not release | Painted, seized or obstructed over time | Whoever decorated or changed the floor last |
| Operator still on factory defaults | Installed and powered up, never commissioned to the opening | The commissioning scope that was not bought |
| No record at all | Nobody was named as responsible for the log | The specification, for not naming a role |
Look at the third column. It is almost never the operator manufacturer, and it is almost never the door manufacturer either. It is the gap between them, plus the years afterwards. That is what a maintenance contract is actually buying.
We should be direct about where we sit in the three-industry picture, because a supplier who blurs it is not doing you a favour. Our published catalogue is aluminium system windows and doors — thermally broken casement, tilt-and-turn, sliding and lift-sliding systems, in 6060-T66 profiles with PA66GF25 polyamide thermal breaks and wall thicknesses in the 1.8 to 2.5 mm range. What we manufacture and can document is the leaf and the frame.
What we do not manufacture is the drive, the sensor package, the control board or the safety case. The automatic function, the sensing layout, the measured forces and the conformity of the finished powered doorset belong to the operator manufacturer and to the certified installer and inspector. If your enquiry is for a complete automatic entrance, expect two purchase orders and one commissioning scope — and treat the company that offers to be all three without naming a certified inspector as a warning sign rather than a convenience.
What we can do that genuinely helps the safety case is narrower and more useful than a promise:
A gap in a published specification is not evidence that a product is worse. It is evidence that there is nothing to compare yet. The useful move is to turn every gap into a written question with a named owner.
| Item | What is published | Why there is a gap, and what to ask for |
|---|---|---|
| Alloy and temper | 6060-T66 across the range | A line that is identical on every product is a floor, not a differentiator. Ask for mill certificates and measured values on the actual batch. |
| Wall thickness | 1.8 to 2.5 mm depending on series, with local reinforcement on some sliding door profiles | "Reinforced in critical areas" is two statements in one: a floor and a list of positions. Ask where, on a drawing. |
| Thermal break | PA66GF25, multi-chamber, with strip widths published for some series | This is a structural component as much as a thermal one. Ask for the strip width in millimetres for the series you are buying. |
| Thermal transmittance | System values published for some casement and tilt-and-turn series | A system value belongs to a stated configuration, not to your opening. Ask for the calculation for your size, glass build and standard. |
| Frame depth | Published per series, and it is a series property, not a function of track count | Ask for the depth in millimetres and check it against your wall build-up, not against another product's depth. |
| Leaf mass and inertia | Not published as a standard line | It depends on size, glass build and hardware. Ask for a calculated leaf mass for your exact configuration — this is the number the operator is sized on. |
| Corrosion and mechanical test figures | Published for one series only | Those results belong to the tested series and do not transfer. They are also not air, water or wind ratings. Ask which series was tested and for the report. |
| Hardware cycle counts | A bench-tested figure published for one hardware brand | A bench cycle is not a service life, and a handle cycle is not a loaded leaf cycle. On an automatic door the operator's own cycle rating governs. |
| Air, water and wind ratings | Not published for any series | Unpublished is not the same as poor. It does mean you must ask for test data for your configuration and standard, in writing. |
| Powered doorset conformity | Not ours to ｄｅｃｌａｒｅ | Conformity attaches to the assembled, commissioned doorset and is declared by the party placing it on the market in your jurisdiction. |
Most slow, vague quotations are caused by missing inputs rather than by reluctant suppliers. These ten lines will change the quality of every answer you receive — from us, from an operator manufacturer, and from an installer.
| Send this | What it unlocks | If you leave it blank | An answer that sounds reasonable but carries no information |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leaf width and leaf height in millimetres | Inertia, operator model, minimum cycle times | Every performance answer becomes conditional | "Standard size" |
| Glass build-up | Leaf mass, and therefore everything above | The heaviest item in the leaf is undefined | "Standard double glazing" |
| Interior or exterior, and exposure | Whether wind and stack compensation are required | You may receive an interior-rated solution | "It is heavy duty" |
| Is it on an escape route | Break-out, manual force, mode selector labelling | The most safety-critical requirement is never priced | "It can be opened manually" |
| Clear opening width required | Whether the opening works at all | A compliant door in a non-compliant opening | "We will check on site" |
| Expected traffic and user profile | Low energy versus full power, sensor layout | The risk assessment has nothing to assess | "Suitable for all applications" |
| Who carries out commissioning and force testing | A measured, documented baseline | Factory defaults become the operating settings | "The installer will handle it" |
| Who keeps the log book and does the daily check | The record that answers questions after an incident | Everyone assumes someone else has it | "We provide full documentation" |
| Named standard and edition | A comparable quotation from every bidder | Three bids answering three different questions | "Meets international standards" |
| Spare parts and service life expectation | Whether the door is maintainable in year eight | A working door that cannot be repaired | "Spare parts are always available" |
| Situation | Why a swing door fights you | Consider instead |
|---|---|---|
| A very wide, very tall, heavily glazed leaf | Inertia rises with the square of width; you run out of operator and out of the low energy time table at the same corner | Two narrower leaves, or a sliding configuration |
| A narrow corridor or a lobby with no clear depth | The leaf sweeps into the space people occupy, and there is no room for the clear depth guidance | A sliding or telescopic entrance |
| Strong prevailing wind directly onto the entrance | The operator must close and latch against a real load, every cycle | A recessed entrance, a vestibule, or a sliding door |
| A building with no one named to do the daily check | Drift is the dominant failure mode and nothing catches it | A manual door with a closer, until a maintenance regime exists |
| A site with no certified inspector available | Annual inspection and log book are part of the safety case, not optional extras | Resolve the service question before you buy the hardware |
| An existing leaf that already drags, sags or rubs | The operator will work against constant resistance and the force will be turned up | Rectify the door first, then automate it |
Often yes, and published installer guidance is explicit that most existing swing doors will accept a low energy operator without replacing the leaf or frame, provided the opening delivers the required clear width and the door is structurally sound. The two things that stop it are a leaf whose mass and width are outside the operator's published limits, and an opening whose clear width is already short. An operator does not create clear width.
Because slow is the safety mechanism. On the low energy path the standard tabulates minimum opening and closing times against leaf width and leaf mass, and a heavy, wide leaf is obliged to take longer — six seconds or more is not unusual at the top of the table. If the door has got slower over time rather than being slow from the start, that is different: something is dragging, and the answer is to find the drag rather than to speed the door up.
No. Low energy reduces the force and speed to a level at which contact is not considered hazardous, and it generally reduces the sensor requirement. Published guidance still requires the residual risk to be assessed for elderly, frail and disabled users, and for children. Where a large proportion of users fall into those groups, contact with a moving leaf may be unacceptable regardless of the energy figure.
It depends on the cause, which is why the record matters so much. A defect in the leaf, an incorrect operator selection, an uncommissioned installation and a maintenance regime that let the force drift are four different answers with four different defendants. The document that usually decides it is the log book: what was measured at handover, what has been measured since, and who signed for it.
Published guidance generally treats the standard as not retrospective: doorsets installed before the relevant date are not automatically required to be upgraded, though upgrading to current safeguards is described as best practice and a qualified technician may recommend it. Existing buildings are also frequently not exempt from accessibility obligations when the area is altered. Ask your authority having jurisdiction, in writing, and file the answer.
Three things, all before the profile is cut: a calculated leaf mass for your exact size and glass build, the sectional drawings showing hinge-side geometry and closing-edge gaps, and written confirmation of the hinge-side finger protection approach. If a supplier cannot give you the first one, nobody downstream can size the operator correctly.
If you are specifying an automated entrance and want the leaf side of the equation documented — calculated leaf mass, sectional geometry, hinge-side protection and the material basis — send us the opening size, the glass build-up, the exposure and whether the door sits on an escape route. We will tell you what we can put on the drawing and, just as usefully, what belongs to someone else's scope.
