A strata manager in Chatswood asked us to “do the automatic doors ” before an audit. Three buildings, eleven doors, and a folder with one invoice from 2023 that said serviced. No speeds, no sensor notes, no name of the operator. The doors worked. That was the problem. They worked just well enough that nobody had opened the header in two years.

Maintenance is the unglamorous half of this trade. It is also the half that keeps a door off the emergency list. We have written about compliance and about the signs a door is failing. This is the plan in between: what a visit should include, how often, and how to tell a real service from a drive-by.

How often, in practice

For a normal commercial entrance in NSW, twice a year is the floor. A door on a shopping-centre tenancy, a medical centre or a busy cafe wants quarterly. A dusty warehouse wants quarterly as well, sometimes more. A low-traffic office door can live on six-monthly if the first visit shows it is clean and the cycle count is modest.

The calendar matters less than the trigger. Service the door after any of these: a collision, a re-glaze, a shopfront refit that moved the sensor, a run of wet weeks if the header has ever taken water, or a new tenant who has put stock in the sensor zone. Those are the weeks faults are born.

What a proper visit includes

A useful visit is boring to watch. That is a good sign.

·       Talk to the person who uses the door. They know if it hesitates at 4pm or only on windy days.

·       Cycle the door from both sides. Stand in the opening. Confirm it will not close on a person.

·       Clean the sensor lenses and the bottom track. Look at the rollers for flat spots.

·       Check the belt or the arm for play. A loose belt is a future Monday call-out.

·       Look at the lock, the mode switch and the battery if there is a backup.

·       Check the safety signs are still on the glass. They walk off during refits.

·       Note the operator brand and any fault codes, in words.

·       Adjust only what is out. Do not “tune” a door that is already within a safe range.

Speeds and forces sit under AS5007. We are not going to quote clause numbers here. The practical test is the one a receptionist can understand: the door sees you, it waits, it does not hit, it locks when it should. If a technician cannot explain the visit in those terms, the sheet is probably thin.

What the sheet should say

Ask for this, every time.

·       Site, door location, date, technician.

·       Operator brand if it is visible.

·       What was cleaned, what was adjusted, what was replaced.

·       Any fault the tenant reported, and whether it was reproduced.

·       What was left, and whether it is safe to keep using.

·       The next visit month.

“Serviced as per schedule” is not a record. It will not help you in a dispute and it will not help the next technician. One sentence on the fault is enough.

Who should hold the contract

On a single shop, the tenant usually holds it, unless the lease says the base building owns the entrance. On a strata building the plan should name the doors that are common property and the doors that belong to a lot. We turn up to buildings where nobody is sure. The door still needs the service. The invoice just needs a home.

A contract is not a promise that nothing will break. It is a promise that someone looks before it breaks, and that the same people already know the door when it does. The call-out is shorter when the last sheet is on file.

What maintenance will not fix

It will not turn a retail operator into a warehouse operator. It will not straighten a twisted track. It will not make a west-facing sensor ignore the sun if the sensor is the wrong type. Those are replacement or relocation jobs. A good visit names them and prices them. It does not keep billing a clean-and-adjust on a door that needs a new header.

It also will not replace a tenant habit. A menu board in the beam, a pallet in the presence zone, a mat that has crept into the track: we can move them once. The sheet should say they were moved, so the next visit can see if they came back.

A simple yearly shape

January or February: full service, after the Christmas trade. Note any leaf that was hit in December.

Autumn: a shorter visit on the busy doors only. Sensors and tracks.

Before winter: check locks and any battery backup. Wet weeks find the headers that leak.

Spring: the second full service. Re-aim anything the summer fit-out disturbed.

That rhythm fits most of the Sydney and NSW sites we look after. A hospital entrance or a 24-hour site wants a tighter loop. Say so when you book, and the plan can match the door rather than a generic diary.

If your folder is the empty one, start with a survey visit. We list the doors, the brands and the obvious risks, then you decide what goes on a plan. 1300 829 998 or service@theautodoorexperts.com.au.

How a facilities manager can tell the visit happened

Ask the receptionist, not the invoice. Did someone cycle the door. Did they stand in it. Did they ask what it has been doing. A technician who only opens the header and leaves has done the mechanical half and missed the operational half. The tenant knows if the door stalls when the air conditioning starts. We do not, unless we ask.

On multi-site rolls — a retail group, a medical group, a set of strata plans — keep the sheets in one place with the door named the way staff name it. “Door 2, Pitt Street end” beats “auto door, site 14”. When we are called at 7am, that name is how the right leaf gets fixed.

What we are not selling

A maintenance plan is not a warranty on every part, and it is not a substitute for a door that was never fit for the opening. If the visit finds a wet header or a twisted track, the honest note is to replace, not to book another clean. Clients who want the sheet to say “all good” regardless are better with someone else. The sheet is for the next person who has to trust the door, including you.

If you already have a contractor, this list is still a fair checklist to hand them. We would rather see doors serviced properly across Sydney than see another empty folder in Chatswood.

Booking the first proper visit

Tell us how many leaves, not how many buildings. A site can have one entrance and four doors: street, lobby, accessible entry, courtyard. Each one needs its own line. Send access notes — loading dock, after-hours induction, a centre that will not let tools in before 7am. Those details decide whether the day is one visit or two.

A word on batteries and blackouts

Some operators have a battery that will open the door once in a power cut, or hold it in a safe position. Some do not. The service visit is the time to find out which you have, and to write it on the sheet in plain language: “battery present, door opens once on mains fail” or “no battery, door needs a manual override”. Staff should know that sentence. In a Sydney storm week it matters more than the brand of the motor.

If the building has a generator, ask whether the door circuit is on it. We have attended sites where the lights came back and the door did not, because the header was on a different board. That is an electrician’s job to move. It is our job to notice.

Keep the last two sheets on site, not only in an inbox. When we are standing at the door at 7am, the sheet on the wall is the one we can use. A plan that lives only in a shared drive will not lift the servicing queries on their own either. The page you publish is the public version. The sheet on the wall is what stops the call-out. Both are worth doing.