As the leaders in overhead door installations for high-end mutli-family residential buildings in New York City, North Jersey, Southern Long Island, Westchester & Rockland Counties, we are also the leaders for emergency service. Every now and then we receive phone calls past 8PM where the overhead door is either stuck open or closed. Once in a while we receive phone calls when the doors look like this: 

Last week I received a frantic call from someone who needed their kitchen rolling counter door repaired in Manhattan. He called a few other overhead door vendors but was unsatisfied with their service and response time. This door is located inside a Class A Building at a Fortune 500 company in Manhattan. Upon hearing that, I informed the customer we repaired all the loading dock and high-speed doors at this location. When he found out that little but important piece of information he was extremely ecstatic. 

As I visit customers, especially those who are in the food and beverage industry, I see a lot of dock seals or dock side pads that are ripped and torn. So, when is it a good time to replace your dock seals?

Broken Dock Seals

While the dock seals are in place and they somewhat serve their basic function of protecting the building during loading/unloading of deliveries, many facility managers or building owners do not realize this is a environmental and health hazard.

When the dock seal material is ripped and foam is exposed, as displayed in the pictures above, rodents sneak in and  chewing through the foam and create nests inside the foam. For any industry, especially food and beverage, this is a health and safety concern as this allows easy access for rodents to slowly enter your facility.