Sliding Doors For Disabled Access

In the UK the Equality Act 2010 required employers, businesses, and schools to take action to ensure difficulties that people with disabilities may encounter are removed. The most important issues to address were the features of a building that make it difficult for a wheelchair user or a person with another disability to navigate.

Under EU laws all public places like leisure, retails, large restaurants, hospitals, schools, colleges, and universities must have disabled access. The main access areas are stairs, walkways, toilets, entrances and exits. Adjustments must be made to make these areas easily accessible.

Architects in new builds must now consider varying widths, heights, and accessible features which allow for any person to use the facilities. Since the extent of disabilities range from physical limitations to cognitive and development challenges, architects continually seek new methods of design that help improve access to the built environment.

Our expertise at ADC can adapt and install solutions into all buildings whether they are old or new, if your premises are needing to upgrade your existing doors to automatic or you require completely new doors, below are some points to consider.

Automatic doors offer the complete convenience to users and help to meet the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) which is a must for all businesses. The main benefit to disabled access is that automatic doors do not require any physical contact to operate.

Our doors can be operated by either a sensor, pressure plate or button that is placed at a convenient height for a person in a wheelchair (usually about 1m from the ground), and the door stays open for the right amount of time to allow the person to easily enter or exit the building.

The ideal solution is automatic sliding doors for disabled access, not just because they offer the most clearance for a wheelchair user, but they can be safer than a swing door. However not all places are able to fit these types of doors due to the structure of the building, bear in mind though that all manual doors can be retrofitted into an automatic door using a sensor or touch pad. It is recommended that for wheelchair users the opening should be at least 85cm / 33.5” wide.

Always speak to our installation team who will suggest to best option for your building and entrances on 0800 0838630 or contact us here.

Due to the high importance of these doors they need to be regularly maintained to ensure they are operating efficiently.  Over time automatic doors will wear which could result in problems, ADC can offer maintenance contracts to make sure they are performing correctly. ADC have a  FREE 12-month service after your installation for peace of mind.