DENVER — If you work at Denver Fire Station 4, you have to stay on your toes. It is one of the busiest firehouses in the city, and that much activity takes a toll on the equipment.
“They can run upwards of 20 to 25 calls per day,” Robert Murphy, operations division chief for the Denver Fire Department, said. “That’s a lot of work on those doors. In and out. In and out.”
To help alleviate the strain, the garage recently received an upgrade. The station installed new bi-fold doors that open outward instead of upward.
The new doors offer a modest improvement in opening time, going from 16 seconds down to seven seconds, but they are also safer for the drivers.
“The driver can fully see that these are opened. With the other doors that go up, sometimes it’s kind of tough to see if the top position is really seated all the way open,” Murphy said.
The new design should reduce the risk of door collisions, and Murphy said that older doors would sometimes not open all the way if they were damaged. While the doors do cost tens of thousands of dollars upfront, he thinks it should save the city money in the long run because they do not have nearly as many moving parts as a roll-up door.
“[Older doors have] cables, they’ve got springs, they’ve got rollers,” Regional Sales Manager for Door Engineering, the company that manufactures the garage doors, Nick De Fiore said.
“This is your taxpayer money that’s going to repair the door… spring replacements cost maybe $5,000 at times,” De Fiore said. “You can put a door in, pay for it once, and that’s going to pay itself off in the life of that building.”
Austin Hickman owns Noble Overhead Door, the Elizabeth-based company that handled the installation.
“Having such little space was definitely challenging,” Hickman said. “This one was a little tricky, because we had to get the old door out and get the new door in in one day to keep the building secure.”
The project gave the fire department a chance to support local businesses, while giving those companies a way to support a noble cause.
“These are critical doors, and the guys are going to save lives. It’s immensely rewarding to do this type of work,” De Fiore said.
“I think it’s really important for the guys, too. I think they’re super proud about the work that they put in,” Hickman said.
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