Some commercial doors you can service off a ladder. The ones at this Richmond warehouse were not in that category. The top sections and spring assemblies sit high enough that the only safe way to work on them is from a scissor lift, so that is what we brought — along with a truck bed full of torsion springs sized for doors this heavy.
Why commercial doors need different equipment
A residential double door weighs somewhere between 130 and 350 pounds. The doors on an industrial bay can run several times that, and the hardware scales with them: bigger drums, heavier cable, and torsion springs with wire thick enough that you notice the difference the moment you pick one up. Getting those springs onto a shaft twelve or more feet off the ground is not a one-person-on-a-stepladder job. A lift puts the technician at working height with both hands free, which is the difference between doing the job properly and improvising.
Spring sizing on commercial doors is less forgiving than residential too. The cycle life matters more — a warehouse door might run twenty cycles a day where a home door runs four — so undersized springs on a commercial door do not just wear out early, they wear out fast. We measure the door weight and spec the spring set to it rather than swapping like-for-like, because the springs that came off are not always the springs the door should have had.
The small stuff matters at this scale
While the lift was on site we went over the door panels themselves. Commercial doors take hits — forklifts, pallets, weather — and the fasteners that hold struts and hinges to the panels work loose over years of vibration. Snugging those back up takes minutes and prevents the kind of panel flex that eventually cracks a section.
If you run a warehouse, shop, or strata building with overhead doors that have not been looked at in a while, our commercial door service covers exactly this kind of work — springs, operators, panels, and the high-clearance access to reach them. We are in Richmond constantly. Call 778-873-7282 and we will bring the lift.