Are you planning a renovation, have you heard about the so-called “temporary site door” and would like to know more?
In this article we talk about the Ariete temporary site door: the provisional wooden door fitted in homes under renovation to temporarily close off access to the building site.
This solution means you can avoid fitting the final armoured door straight away, protecting it from the dust of the works, from possible knocks and from the wear and tear typical of building sites.
During a renovation, in fact, huge amounts of dust are produced that can work their way into the lock mechanisms and compromise how the door operates over time.
By using a temporary site door, the Ariete armoured door is fitted only once the works are finished, in a clean environment and in ideal conditions.
So let us look at how the temporary site door works, why it can make all the difference during a renovation and what concrete benefits it offers to anyone refurbishing their home.
The two main problems with armoured doors on a building site
When you choose an armoured door, your mind goes straight to the safety of your home. That is only natural. An armoured door is made to protect what we hold most dear.
There is, however, a very delicate moment in the life of a door that almost no one considers: the renovation phase.
It is precisely during the building works that many armoured doors start to suffer, even before the home is finished.
On most building sites the procedure is always the same.
The supplier fits the armoured door while the works are still under way.
Often the leaf is fitted without panels, so that the builders and the plasterboard fitter can finish the reveals and complete the walls.
It seems like a practical solution.
But anyone who lives and breathes building sites every day knows it does not work that way.
The door mechanisms fill up with dust
During a renovation walls are knocked down, surfaces are sanded, materials are cut, skim coats and plaster are applied.
All of these jobs produce a huge amount of fine dust.
That dust gets in everywhere.
It gets into the lock, into the fixed and moving pins, into the internal mechanisms of the armoured door.
Locks work thanks to very precise components that slide on specific lubricants. When dust gets inside the lock, something very simple happens: it mixes with the grease and creates an abrasive paste.
Over time that paste clogs the mechanisms and makes them harder to move.
The door that should be brand new starts to become stiff, noisy, less precise.
This is not a theory.
It is something we have seen countless times on building sites.
The armoured door risks getting damaged
But it is not only a question of dust
On a building site people are constantly coming and going, along with materials, ladders, tools, bags of cement and plasterboard sheets.
The armoured door inevitably becomes a thoroughfare.
It takes very little for the frame or the leaf to take a knock. Sometimes these are small marks, other times genuine dents.
The result is paradoxical: the armoured door gets damaged before the customer has even started living in the home.
The Ariete temporary site door
Ariete temporary site door fitted at the Accademia di Posa fitting academy
Watching these situations unfold over the years, we asked ourselves a simple question.
Why fit the final armoured door in the middle of the dust of a building site?
From this came a solution that today is one of the distinctive services offered by Ariete Security Doors.
When a customer orders one of our armoured doors, we step in at two different moments.
In the first visit our team fits the subframe of the armoured door.
Straight afterwards we fit a provisional wooden door, designed to be used throughout the whole renovation phase.
This is what we call the temporary site door.
From that moment on the contractor can work freely.
Demolitions, sanding, skim coating and dusty jobs can all be carried out without any risk to the final door.
If the provisional door takes knocks or gets dirty it is not a problem.
It is simply doing the job it was designed for.
The 5 benefits of the temporary site door
Ariete temporary site door fitted in a home under renovation in Genoa
The armoured door is fitted only when the building site is finished
When the renovation is complete and the site is clean, we come back to the customer’s home.
At that point we remove the temporary site door and fit the final armoured door, in an environment that is now finished and free of dust.
This means that:
- the lock stays clean
- the internal mechanisms are not contaminated by dust
- the door is not at risk of knocks or damage
- the final installation takes place in ideal conditions
The result is very simple: the armoured door stays genuinely brand new.
Managing the keys is much simpler
The temporary site door also solves a very practical problem that customers often only discover during the works.
When the final armoured door is fitted straight away, the cylinder is already installed with its keys.
On a building site, though, plenty of people come in: builders, electricians, plumbers, the plasterboard fitter, decorators.
The keys become too few and difficult to manage.
It often happens that the customer ends up facing the opposite problem: too many people who need to access the home and too few keys available.
With the temporary site door this problem simply does not exist.
The final armoured door and its cylinder are fitted only at the end of the works, when the home is ready and the keys need to be handed over to the owner alone.
Security is also managed better
Many customers also have another concern.
When the armoured door stays on a building site for months, with so many people coming and going, a doubt always arises:
Is the cylinder really secure? Has the final key been inserted? Could someone have made a copy?
With the temporary site door this problem is eliminated at the root.
The final cylinder is fitted only at the end of the works, when the home is ready and control of the keys is total.
Fitting an armoured temporary site door
The wall finishes are more precise
There is then another very concrete benefit that is often underestimated.
By fitting the subframe first, the contractor can finish all the masonry around the door with great precision.
The plaster, the skim coats and the finishes are carried out with more freedom and greater precision, with no risk of dirtying or damaging a door that has already been fitted.
The final result is cleaner and more accurate.
No more jammed cylinders
The issue of dust in locks is often taken lightly.
Until the day something very simple happens: you arrive at your door and the key no longer turns.
Many people are taken by surprise.
In reality the reason is almost always the same: dust that built up in the cylinder during the works and over time mixed with the lubricant.
We do not want to scaremonger.
Quite the opposite.
We want to put our experience at our customers’ service.
Every week we get calls from people with jammed cylinders on doors fitted during renovation works.
With just a few questions we almost always identify the same scenario: a door fitted during the works, dust that got into the lock, a mechanism that has stiffened over time.
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Conclusions
For us the real difference is not only in the armoured door we fit.
It lies in the solutions we devise to prevent problems before they even arise.
The temporary site door was born precisely from this philosophy.
The experience built up on building sites should be put at our customers’ disposal to achieve the best possible result: both straight away and over the years to come.
It is this approach that leads us to design solutions different from those normally found on the market.
Because an armoured door should not just be beautiful and secure.
It needs to reach the moment of handover in perfect condition to work well over time.
