Plumb and square is the rule of thumb for construction, but what do you do when the self-storage unit is built on a slope? That’s the problem the folks at DBCI faced. The Douglassville, Ga., door manufacturer was asked to bid on an 827-unit self-storage project in Auburn, Calif., in which several of the 10 buildings were on a slope of about 4 percent.
According to Roc Hughes, director of business development and marketing at DBCI, “most storage units have about a 1 percent slope. That’s one reason doors have the rubber astragal tube-like material across the bottom.”
But a 4-degree slope presented significant problems. Even more difficult was the fact that not all the doors required the same slope and many of the doors required no slope. Estimator Rob Hanson explains that DBCI was asked to bid on manufacturing both interior and exterior doors for the Quartz Drive Self-Storage facility, but only exterior doors needed to be customized. Of the 381 exteriors door, 246 were on a slope. Brelle West Construction, Clovis, Calif., was the general contractor and a long-time customer of DBCI. “We quoted the M650 doors, which is our regular mini door,” says Hanson. “The slope issue was the main reason they came to us. They were looking for someone to help them with that problem. We came up with a couple of different solutions and came up with a product that worked for that job site.”
The Solution
At the time of the project in the fall 2009, Tony Albanese was the installation manager, but now he serves as terminal sales manager for DBCI. “Our M650 has a standard aluminum bottom bar,” says Albanese. “We manufactured a tapered bottom bar which was kind of welded and bolted in certain locations.” The taper ran from about 4 1/2 inches on one end to 2 1/2 inches on the other.
The bar was made from extruded aluminum and DBCI spliced it down the middle, according to Albanese. They then used a tig welding technique and carriage bolts in specific locations that provided the taper. DBCI uses aluminum as a standard for its doors because it’s a noncorrosive material and, explains Albanese, “has a nicer look and is far more functional as far as wear and tear.”
But because the slopes varied, installers needed to be able to make adjustments on-site. “We manufactured it in a way the installers could adjust the bottom bar in the field by removing some of
the pre-drilled nuts and bolts,” says Albanese.
“They could actually expand it like an expandable ruler on each side of the door to compensate for the changes in slope and have a nice tight seal across the floor.”
The solution allowed field workers about 1 1/2 to 2 inches of play in adjustment-added to the existing taper of approximately 2 inches.
“This was the first of its kind for us,” says Hughes. He explains that the cost of making this adjustment would far outweigh the cost of extra site work on a slope, including bringing in extra rock or dirt, as well as increased drainage.
Scheduling
DBCI spent about a month working out the solution and doing design and prototypes. “It was a collaborative effort,” Albanese says. “It was a pretty good collective group. Even some of the guys that worked in our shop-everyone brought something to the table. It was refreshing to know that everyone was willing to take on this little bit of a challenge to take on something different. When you’re in a manufacturing business, you tend to do the same thing day in day out. It was nice to work on something different.”
Hughes adds, “The whole team thought outside the box, which was nice.”
The first materials were delivered July and the final materials in September. The bottom bar was manufactured in Douglassville, Ga., then shipped to a manufacturing plant in Chandler, Ariz., where it was attached to the bottom of the doors. The Arizona facility then shipped to the job site.
One of the elements that worked in their favor was the scheduling. “As our installer was putting in the interior units,” says Albanese, “he was also verifying and measuring different slopes and different degree of slopes at each building. He got us that information substantially early enough so we could utilize this process and adhere to the contractor’s schedule. It was a coordinated effort with the installer that did the project.”
When asked whether they would do it again, Albanese says, “Absolutely. In the future when the economy improves, when we come across these kinds of situations, we’ll be better prepared and have a solution ready to go at any given moment. We can offer it during our bidding process … and save a bunch of money in site work. In a way, it’s kind of a helping hand from a selling standpoint.”
