The Case for Product Protection at the Dock

A typical door is 8’ x 10’, a rather big opening for air to flow through. Even a closed doorway can present a risk to both food quality and energy conservation programs.

The problem starts with the doors themselves. Unlike the more complex refrigeration, material handling, or processing systems, doors are often given little consideration either from management or the forklift drivers that operate around them.

Standard dock doors, which are similar to the doors on a home garage, cannot withstand the often abusive world of the loading dock. If a forklift drives into a door or the forklift mast clips the bottom panel when the door is raised, a standard dock door will likely be damaged.

Vertical levelers store upright to protect doorways from forklift collisions and attach to the floor, eliminating the need to cut an energy-wasting pit into the dock.

The door guidance system is also no match for a forklift. Again, much like a home garage door, the door panels attach to mushroom-shaped rollers that run along a sheet metal track, which can be hammered out of shape when hit by a forklift.

Two problems tend to occur. The pounding sustained by the doors forces them out of alignment, forming energy-robbing gaps between the doorframe and the door. Meanwhile, the impact on the tracks closes them around the rollers, making the door hard to open and tempting workers to save their backs by leaving the doors open as one truck leaves and another approaches the dock, leading to a massive loss of conditioned air.

Impactable Dock Doors

A growing number of food docks are combating this problem with impactable dock doors. While impactable bottom panels and other partially impactable or “flexible panel” systems are also available, fully impactable dock doors can take the abuse anywhere on the door or track.

Impactable dock doors are designed with spring-loaded plungers on each door panel that retract when hit, releasing them from the guide tracks rather than resisting the force and causing damage. These same doors are designed with impactable tracks, which, unlike conventional steel tracks, can take a direct forklift impact without suffering any damage. Additionally, with fully impactable doors, the door seal is attached to the door panels, not the track, so the seal travels up with the door—and out of harm’s way—during loading.

The other drawback of standard dock doors is that the metal panels and track can conduct heat into the building, causing moisture to form around the dock, which then becomes a bacteria breeding area. Impactable doors can be equipped with plastic tracks, which do not conduct heat, keeping moisture off the dock area.

Even with an impactable dock door, energy can escape through the gaps between the dock leveler platform and the concrete pit cut into the dock floor beneath the leveler. Vertical storing dock levelers are a remedy. Vertical levelers provide the same bridge into trailers as traditional dock levelers, but they do not need a traditional pit cut into the floor for installation. And because they store upright, vertical levelers allow the door to close tight against the warehouse floor, sealing off any gaps.

Dock Seals Are Critical

Powered truck restraints maintain a firm grip on truck trailers to prevent separation from the dock that could affect both safety and energy retention.

Dock seals are critically important to maintaining dock-doorway seals. As with damaged dock doors, a poorly specified seal or shelter allows moisture and air to infiltrate.

Dock seals have fabric-covered foam pads that compress when a trailer backs into them to provide a tight seal around the sides of the trailer as well as to seal off the gaps between the trailer’s door hinges. Dock shelters consist of fabric attached to side/head frames to create a canopy around the full perimeter of the trailer while allowing full, unimpeded access to the interior of the trailer.