What to Look for in a Hangar Door

Not all hangar doors are equal, and you know it if you’ve had experience with a variety of systems. There are a number of factors to consider when choosing a hangar door, whether as a replacement or for a new building.

Reliability

The primary reasons a hangar needs a door are to protect your equipment from the elements, to keep climate-controlled air from leaking out, and to prevent birds and other creatures from entering. A reliable seal on your hangar door is essential to address all three of these concerns.

Bifold doors, vertical lift doors, and rolling doors all require moving seals along every edge of the hangar door. These moving seals increase the likelihood of losing heat and A/C as well as letting in more of the elements when the moving seal is damaged.

Para-Port® Doors only require seals at the sides and bottom; the top is a solid attachment and the opening is covered with one complete sheet of material, giving your hangar prime protection from the elements. When dependability is key, you need a door that always opens.

Ease of Opening

You want your hangar door to be protected from the elements, but those doors need to be easy and reliable to move as soon as you’re ready to go.

Mechanical bifold doors and vertical lift doors can leave you crossing your fingers and holding your breath every time you flip the switch and listen to the hydraulics whine… will the door open this time? If there’s a power failure, these heavy doors can be nearly impossible to open manually, and it’s likely you’ll need to call a professional to address jammed doors.

Sliding doors are usually opened manually. While these are often cost effective and simple to operate, they require some upper body strength to open and close, and their rudimentary design can result in jammed tracks that require regular cleaning to operate smoothly.

Curtain doors like Para-Port® Doors are lighter than all of the other options on the market and thus require simpler mechanisms that are cheaper to maintain. Each door is equipped with an emergency hand crank in the event of a power failure.

Durability

Hangar doors of all shapes and sizes require ongoing maintenance and servicing; the trick is how much will it cost and how long will it last? Para-Port® Doors require less maintenance than other doors and outperform all configurations of swing-up doors in windy conditions without rendering them unusable or compromised. They’re also functional in all climates. Ice and snow don’t stick to the door so that you can still open it in cold weather conditions, and in warmer climates, you can open the door partially to allow for cool breezes without sacrificing protection from the afternoon sun. Our doors typically have a lifespan of 20-25 years.

Size of Opening

Just as every hangar is extremely customizable, so are hangar doors. The size of opening you need will help determine the kind of door you want to install. If you’re building a new hangar, you’ll need to know from the start which kind of door you plan to install so that the engineer can build with the appropriate support for the kind of hangar door you’ve chosen.

Para-Port® Doors can accommodate large door openings of 150’+, small 40’ wide door openings, or any size in between. If you’re replacing an existing door, Para-Port® Doors can be custom designed to fit the entrance, which will reduce your maintenance costs, help you make space for larger aircraft, increase natural lighting, and improve reliability. If you’re building a new hangar, Para-Port® Doors give you the flexibility to design in a way that can save you in construction expenses and steel requirements.

Learn more about the value of a Para-Port® Door by visiting our website for more details.