Doors — Keep the Cold out and the Heat in
By Timothy Denman

When it comes to keeping a car wash warm in the winter it all starts with the door. Operators are faced with a number of different options for keeping precious warm air inside the wash.

“Every application is going to be a little different,” Josh Hart of Airlift Doors said. “The most important thing is matching the wash’s needs with the door.”

The three most popular styles of car wash doors are polycarbonate overhead, vinyl roll up, and bi-parting. Each offers unique benefits that should be examined before making a decision on which style is best for each location.

The three options share one thing in common: keeping the cold air out and as much warm air in as possible.

“Our industry has been green for 30 years,” Danny De Roia of Clear Fold Doors said. “All this green thinking the country is going through, we have been dedicated to energy savings since the beginning. It’s our business.”

Polycarbonate
Polycarbonate has become the go-to style for many wash owners. The doors offer security, durability, strength, and high visibility. Polycarbonate has 200 times the impact strength of glass, increased heat retention, and 85 percent light visibility.

The units operate similarly to a standard garage door, lifting vertically on a steel or plastic track. The system is powered with either an air or electric motor depending on the wash’s needs and budget concerns. Electric motors are more cost effective, but are not ideal for the wet conditions of a wash environment.

“We mix and match between electric and pneumatic,” Hart said. “But primarily we recommend pneumatic. Around 90 percent of our units are air powered.”

In addition to its tangible features, polycarbonate offers wash owners an additional benefit: recognition.

“The polycarbonate door is a car wash icon,” Kevin Baumgartner of American Garage Door said. “If you are driving down the street and you see a bunch of buildings and one has a polycarb door you can bet it is a car wash. There is an attraction there from a marketing standpoint. The polycarb door stands out.”

Vinyl Roll Up
A less expensive option for keeping the cold out is a vinyl roll up door. Just as the name implies, the doors open vertically, and coils or rolls up when opened.

The units are a value-based option and offer some wind-breaking capabilities, but in harsh winter environments more substance may be needed.

The doors offer some visibility, little to no security, and limited heat retention capabilities.

Just like the polycarbonate option, vinyl roll ups can be operated by either an electric or air powered motor, with most operators selecting the more durable pneumatic models.

There are, however, owners who are loyal to the electric style door openers and there are manufacturers out there that still cater to the segment.

“There are people out there that don’t like air power,” Hart said. “They have always had electric openers. Typically electric motors don’t last as long in a car wash environment. We decided to go to the electric side to give the people who don’t like air a different option.”

Bi-Parting
The bi-parting door shares some of the benefits with the other two options, while carving out a niche in the market all its own.

The door’s biggest competition is from the roll-up market — both options are economically sensible. The bi-parting style eliminates a lot of the drip associated with overhead doors, and provides customers with the idea of a fast damage-free breakaway. The separation of strips is going to do significantly less damage should a quick escape be necessary. The bi-parting utilizes thicker material, which helps with heat retention.

“They are a windbreaker,” Lawrence Havens of Wiota Enterprises said. “They will make about a 20 degree difference in the inside and outside temperatures.”

The bi-parting doors offer greater opening and closing speeds, lessening a wash’s exposure to the outside elements. “Our doors clear a 10 foot span in just over a second,“ De Roia said. “In comparison, the roll ups cover anywhere from four to eight feet in the same time.”

There are two types of bi-parting vinyl doors: overlapping and Velcro panels. The Velcro versions offer greater heat retention due to the tighter fit between the panels.

Each of the three door options discussed have its own unique set of benefits and limitations. No one option is perfect for every wash. In making a decision between the three, individual needs and especially climate conditions must be examined.