Three categories, three lifespans
Commercial doors carry a small number of hardware components that do almost all the work. They wear at different rates and fail differently. Knowing the typical lifespan of each helps plan replacement before failure, and helps quickly diagnose which component is at fault when something goes wrong.
Hinges and pivots
Commercial doors use one of three hinge types. Butt hinges on traditional timber and steel doors — three or four per door, mortised into the edge and frame. Pivots on aluminium shopfronts — a bottom pivot at the floor and a top centre at the head of the frame. Continuous (piano) hinges on heavy-duty traffic doors and security doors — a single hinge running the full height of the door.
Hinges fail in three ways. Wear — bushings and bearings inside the hinge or pivot wear out, the door drops, develops play, and runs out of true. Most common on aluminium pivots and heavy butt hinges. Fixings loosen — the screws or bolts holding the hinge to the frame work loose under repeated cycling, especially on doors that are slammed. Structural failure — rare, but a hinge pin can shear or a butt hinge can crack on overloaded doors.
Hinge replacement is straightforward but precise — the new hinge must locate exactly in the original mortise, fixings must be set correctly, and the door must be checked for square after the swap. Pivot replacement on aluminium doors typically takes 1–2 hours; butt hinges around an hour each; continuous hinges half a day.
Locks: mortice, hookbolt, multi-point
Commercial locks split into three families. Mortice locks are sash or dead locks set into the door edge — standard on internal doors, fire doors, office doors. Hookbolt locks are the hooking deadbolts common on aluminium shopfronts — pull-the-handle-up to engage, key to lock. Multi-point locks have multiple bolts engaging at top, middle and bottom of the door — used on security doors, high-spec entrances, and timber doors needing weather and security seal.
Failure modes by lock type:
- Mortice lock body wear — the case becomes sluggish, the bolt sticks, or the cylinder spins without engaging. Usually 5–15 years before this shows. Swap the lock body, keep the cylinder if it’s good.
- Hookbolt mechanism failure — the hook does not extend fully, or stays out and will not retract. Often a worn lift cam inside the lock case. Same replacement strategy as mortice.
- Multi-point gearbox failure — one of the bolts no longer engages, or the lift handle feels stiff or sloppy. The gearbox (the central mechanism) is replaceable as a kit; the rods running top and bottom usually stay in place.
- Cylinder failure — keys turning loosely, key snapping, picks and bumps successful. Cylinders are wear items too. Replace the cylinder (a Euro profile cylinder is a 5-minute job); usually no need to touch the lock body.
Closers: overhead, transom, floor spring
Already covered in depth in our closer-specific guide, but briefly. Closers are hydraulic — they wear, leak, and eventually need full replacement. Service life is 3–10 years depending on cycle count, brand and how well they’re tuned. The most cost-effective intervention on any commercial doorset is keeping the closer tuned (5-minute adjustment every six months).
When commissioning a closer replacement, ask the engineer to check pivot wear and lock action at the same time — replacing all three together on a refurb saves multiple callouts over the following few years.
Brand compatibility and parts availability
UK commercial doors are dominated by a handful of brands. Knowing which is fitted to your doors makes parts sourcing and engineer brief much faster.
- Dorma (now dormakaba) — closers TS68, TS72, TS73, TS83, TS91, TS92, TS93; floor springs BTS75V, BTS80, BTS84. Excellent parts availability.
- Geze — closers TS3000, TS4000, TS5000; floor springs TS500. Strong UK presence, parts via authorised channels.
- Briton (Allegion) — closers 2003, 2120, 121CE, 2300; widely used in UK education and healthcare. Parts via Allegion.
- Adams Rite — hookbolt locks and aluminium-door hardware, ubiquitous on UK shopfronts. Parts excellent.
- ASSA Abloy — multi-point locks, cylinders, electronic locks. The biggest UK security hardware ecosystem; parts excellent.
When to repair, when to replace the whole hardware set
Single-component failure: repair that component. This is the right call in roughly 90% of cases — the other components have life left and replacing them prematurely is waste.
Two components failing close together (e.g. closer dies, three months later the pivot also goes): take the second callout as a signal to assess the whole hardware set. Often the closer killed the pivot; what else is showing wear? An engineer can assess closer, pivots, lock and frame fixings in 30 minutes and quote a full refurb.
Door over 15 years old with multiple symptoms: full hardware refurbishment may be cheaper than four separate visits over the next 18 months. Even then, the door, frame and glass usually stay — only the hardware changes.