FRAME THROAT measured before order
HANDING LHR / RHR / LHRB / RHRB
LEAF hollow metal / aluminum / wood
PREP 161 or mortise

Leaves, frames and prep

Commercial Door Installation in Charlotte, NC

Describe what you have and where it is going.

The short version

Most bad installs were decided weeks before anyone picked up a tool

A commercial door is an assembly, not a product. Leaf, frame, hardware prep and fire label all have to agree, and they are usually specified by different people from different documents at different times.

When an install goes wrong the fault is almost never in the fitting. It is that a 3'0" leaf was ordered for an opening measuring 2'10", or that the leaf arrived with a 161 prep while the schedule called for a mortise lock. We work backwards from that: somebody measures the opening, records the handing, reads the existing prep and photographs the frame before a purchase order exists.

Commercial door technician working at a building opening in Charlotte, NC — On site at a commercial opening in Charlotte, NC

Scope of work

Installation work we take on

The category splits cleanly into leaf-only work, where a sound frame stays, and opening work, where the frame is in scope and the wall comes into it. Which one you have is a measurement, not an opinion.

Leaf replacement into an existing frame: The most common request and the one most likely to go wrong. Frame throat, hinge locations, existing prep and squareness get verified before ordering, because a frame that has moved will not accept a leaf cut to nominal.
New openings in new construction: Frame set, leaf hung, hardware installed and adjusted, coordinated against the architect's door schedule. Schedule conflicts get flagged in writing rather than built.
Aluminum storefront leaves: Medium and wide stile entries into existing storefront framing, with pivots or offset hinges specified to match what the frame will actually carry.
Hollow metal doors: 16 and 18 gauge leaves in knock-down or welded frames, including the ones going into a masonry opening where nothing is plumb.
Wood doors in metal frames: Solid core flush leaves for offices, corridors and back-of-house, machined to the hardware schedule before delivery rather than routed on site.
Handing and swing changes: Reversing a swing is rarely a matter of moving hinges. It changes egress direction, closer arm type and strike location, and where egress is involved it is a code question first.
Door-only replacement where the frame stays: When the frame is sound, keeping it is the cheaper and better answer. We say so, and show the measurements that support it.

What drives the figure

What does commercial door installation cost in Charlotte, NC?

No figures published. Two openings that look identical from the corridor can differ by a factor of three once the frame is measured.

What moves the figure	Why it matters	What settles it
Whether the frame stays	Reusing a sound frame removes the single largest variable. Replacing it brings the wall into scope.	Survey — squareness, anchor condition, corrosion at the floor line
Leaf material and construction	Flush hollow metal, solid core wood and wide stile aluminum are three price bands and three lead times.	What the opening is and what the building already uses
Hardware set	Often the larger half. A Grade 1 exit device, closer and electrified strike can exceed the leaf.	Function specified from how the room is used
Label status	A rated assembly restricts what may be used and removes field modification as an option.	Reading the label on the leaf and the frame
Access and hours	An opening on a loading corridor at six and an opening in an occupied lobby are the same work under different constraints.	Your building's hours, agreed before the figure

On this line of work

What you get on a commercial door installation job

Measurement happens first

Every part of this business is arranged to stop the wrong thing being ordered. Unglamorous, and the entire value.

The schedule is written by someone who writes schedules

Architects' door schedules get read against what manufacturers actually build, and the conflicts come back in writing before anything ships.

We will tell you to keep the frame

Frame replacement is the bigger job and the bigger invoice. When the frame is sound we say so.

Sequence

How an installation runs

Describe it on the phone

Material, rough size, where it is, and what is wrong with what is there now. Usually enough to establish whether this is a leaf job or an opening job.

Call (333) 333 333

Survey and measure

Grady walks the opening and records eleven things: measured size against nominal, frame material and throat, handing, hinge count and location, existing lock prep, closer type, threshold and floor condition, label, egress status, clear width against ADA 2010 Standards section 404, and anything electrified.

Schedule the hardware

Priya writes the set against what the opening will accept and what the code requires, then puts it in front of you before it is ordered.

Written scope and lead times

Specification, lead time per component, exact scope. Nothing is ordered until you have approved it.

Install

Frame first if the frame is in scope, then leaf, then hardware, then adjustment. Occupied buildings get scheduled around your hours.

Verify and hand over

Swing, latch, closer speed, clear width and single-motion unlatching where it applies, all checked and recorded before we leave.

Elsewhere on the site

Commercial Door Installation across the metro

Concord, NC Huntersville, NC Indian Trail, NC Fort Mill, SC Matthews, NC Harrisburg, NC

Say what the opening is. We will tell you which line it falls under.

Tell us the material, the rough size and what the opening is doing now, and you will hear whether it is a leaf, an opening, or a job for a different trade.

Call (333) 333 333 What decides the figure

Service lines

Commercial Door Installation
Door Frame Replacement
Commercial Door Hardware Installation
ADA and Egress Door Compliance Upgrades
Fire-Rated Door Replacement