Everything you ever wanted to know about transportable doors

In a sense, all doors are transportable. That is, after all, rather the point of a door: they facilitate the transportation of things through thresholds (as opposed to, say, walls, which prevent transit by their very design). In a more real and pragmatic sense, however, there are things known as 'transportable doors'. These doors don't merely transport other things — they are designed to be transported themselves. Transportable doors are suitable to be used on transportable buildings, like shipping container offices, and they have special qualities.

In this article, we've brought together a huge amount of information about transportable doors and transportable buildings. With this knowledge, you'll be able to use transportable doors and buildings to create more comfortable settings in harsh and strenuous environments, like in regional locations or on worksites. Transportable doors and buildings are intended and ready to be relocated, reused and repurposed, and are employed in a range of industries such as education, mining, government and commerce, just to name a few. Read on, and see if we can't answer your question about transportable doors.

Larnec is a proud supplier of transportable building doors for all kinds of industries. If you are looking for doors to improve the security and accessibility of your transportable buildings, get in touch with our customer service team today.

What are the benefits of transportable buildings and doors?

There are many benefits to transportable buildings for businesses in many industries all over the country.

Transportable doors and buildings can help with rapid deployment

When working on simultaneous and sometimes lengthy site work projects, the deployment of transportable buildings can be completed 30% to 50% sooner than traditional construction. If need be, they can be relocated easily and quickly to fit around logistics and timetables.

Security, robustness, and quality, all assured by quality transportable doors and buildings

Because these types of buildings still have to adhere to the regulations and standards of the Building Code of Australia, they are of a high quality and are suitable for a wide range of uses.

Because they need to be used on construction sites, they must be structurally resilient from the very start. No assembly happens on site. Once these doors have been factory built, they can be transported for use. You will find that they can withstand various harsh environments, from hot and dry to cold climates and other extreme weather conditions.

Flexible and sustainable transportable doors and buildings

Transportable buildings house many economic and environmental benefits. For example, they use less material waste on-site while giving an extremely high quality option for the buyer or user.

No modifications are needed; these transportable buildings are ready to go when they're dropped on site. And, with these buildings being so flexible and versatile in their uses, recycling, refurbishing and reusing them for other projects helps to reduce the amount of new and raw materials and energy output that is needed to produce a new one.

What are some uses for transportable doors?

Transportable doors have many practical uses. Here are just a few of the locations and industries where you're likely to see transportable doors:

• Homes to temporarily house workers onsite at mines and other fly-in fly-out operations
• Offices for large-scale building projects and other projects that require a semi-permanent base
• Events as central nodes for operation and communication for staff in many different sectors
• Cabins and other ‘tiny home’ projects that can be uprooted at a moment’s notice
• Classrooms for schools and universities that are currently under construction or renovation
• Motels as temporary housing when parts of the main building are under construction or renovation
• Toilets for events, stadiums, and other large scale events that require fast deployment and easy cleaning
• Art Spaces to provide rapidly changeable landscapes for housing shows and entire collections
• First Aid centres and triage locations to help support nearby hospitals
• Accommodation to house people and staff at events, in remote areas, or in a crisis situation
• Sheds and storage for businesses requiring stopgaps to fill the demand of inventory
• Cafes and pop-up food ventures that require offsite storage of food and equipment

What features does a transportable door need to have?

Transportable doors have a more demanding job to do than traditional doors that just stay in one place. Here are a few of the features that a transportable door needs to have.

1. Weather features

Portable buildings face harsh conditions in remote locations. This is especially true in Australia, where they can be exposed to blistering heat, high winds, dust storms, and unfavourable weather.

Several features of personal access doors for modular or transportable buildings help resist harsh weather conditions:

• Perimeter doorframe seals counter the most violent weather and dust storms. Their design resists the ingress of water and solids, keeping the inside of the building clean.
• Powder coating is resistant to the abrasive effects of sand and wind. Keeping this coating intact protects the metal from exposure to the elements.
• J-mould weather flashings protect the joints from the direct buffeting of rain and wind. These are optional accessories for the transportable personal access door.

The Sentry 200.PB transportable door has been designed to exceed national standards for weather-proofing. It can counter fierce dust storms, high winds, and other instances of unfavourable weather.

2. Security features

Security is a significant concern for transportable buildings. Their location in remote areas makes them vulnerable to break-in and theft. The personal access door is the first line of defence. A secure door will prevent access and keep valuable equipment and resources safe.

Security features of the portable building personal access door are as follows:

• The door is metal clad and semi-solid. The steel facing doors offer high strength and resist attempts to use forceful impact to damage the door.
• Three industrial-grade hinges provide a barrier to break-in. Even if one hinge gives way, the other two prevent the door from opening.
• High-quality knob/level egress and exit sets ensure that the door is secure from tampering. At the same time, locksets can provide emergency exit capability if required.

The Sentry 200.PB transportable door displays all of the above security features. It is also escape-function compliant, ensuring that people inside the transportable building can exit safely.

3. Speed of installation features

Knowing that speed is of the essence when deploying a transportable building, manufacturers must install doors with minimum delay. Some features of an excellent personal access door make quick installation easy:

• Prehung doors remove a time-consuming task from installers.
• Reverse handing allows for any door orientation without modifications.
• Their design enables installation without drilling on site. This feature reduces the potential for error and eliminates labour tasks.

Larnec manufactures transportable doors at our factory in Victoria, but our turnaround times are the fastest in Australia. We ship from the factory to the site with minimum delay and we deliver anywhere in Australia so that you can meet your schedule for transportable buildings.

4. Accessories

Transportable buildings sometimes have requirements for accessories to personal access doors. Larnec offers air relief grilles, flush locks, and panic bars on request. Our doors are escape function compliant so that occupants can use them for emergency exits during an evacuation.

Can you use transportable doors on shipping containers?

Yes. Modified shipping container buildings are perfect for transportable doors. These units are easily moveable because of their standard size and the number of trucks already in service moving containers around the country. In the case of shipping containers, personal access doors must be retrofitted. This action involves cutting an opening in the container and installing the door. Our shipping container doors come prehung, so once the frame is in place the personal access door is ready for use.

We've put together an extensive guide to shipping container door solutions. We go through the different types of shipping container, and different uses for shipping container buildings, to help you evaluate whether a transportable door is going to be right for you.

There are several choices for transportable doors that work with shipping containers, such as:

• The Sentry 200.BF is a box frame container door. It is a heavy-duty and durable door suitable for any container conversion. Installers weld this model directly into the opening cut into the container wall making the process fast and straightforward.
• The Sentry 200.CD is also a retrofit external door solution for containers. However, it requires the installation of a rectangular hollow section (RHS) framework into the container wall. The door comes with flush locks and has universal/reversible handing for changing the door orientation.

Are there building regulations that apply to transportable doors?

There certainly are, and we've written an extensive guide to building regulations for transportable doors and buildings. These regulations extend to things like:

• Foundations and tie-downs, ensuring that transportable buildings are stable and at less risk of damage from wind and earthquakes
• Fire safety, incorporating fire fighting equipment, escape routes in case of a fire, and the storage of flammable materials
• Ancillary provisions, like electricity, gas, plumbing and drainage, which are important, but are not necessarily covered by the building standard for transportable buildings
• Permits and council approval, like Development Applications and Activity Approval

Our team at Larnec has years of experience with transportable doors, and can help you comply with regulations and install your doors in the safest way possible.