Luxury resort gets five-star doors

WHEN a flood devastated the northern NSW city of Lismore in 2022, the record 14.4m-high floodwater not only inundated hundreds of homes, but also critical community infrastructure. TAFE NSW appointed construction firm Lipman Pty Ltd to rebuild its campus in the heart of the city. The firm’s brief was to restore the heritage features of the main building where possible, or replace them in keeping in their original heritage style. Some 40 doors – around 90% – had to be replaced. NC Doors has partnered with Lipman on numerous new builds. At Lismore TAFE, the challenge was to not only faithfully replicate non-standard sized heritage doors, but to install them in frames and walls effected by days of immersion in floodwater.

Designing and manufacturing metal-clad timber doors for the ANSTO nuclear medical science complex in Sydney called for the skills of the entire NC Doors’ team. Our CAD designer Harris Butler visited the site of what is the world’s newest nuclear medicine facility to profile the door frames, capturing their exact dimensions. Collaborating with our CNC technician Jackson Sauer, the pair then developed the production programs required to size, shape and rout each of the door panels, which our fabricating team built by hand. NC Doors computer-assisted manufacturing process removes the hinge rebate panels and lockset cut-outs, so the hardware can be fitted in our factory. This allows the doors to arrive ready to be installed in hours, instead of days when this pre-installation work has to be done onsite by a carpenter. Our technology handled complex door designs Several of the doors incorporated fire-rated Pyropanel cores, others had acoustic-rated centres, while the security doors featured high-strength block cores, in 40-50mm thicknesses. A pair of galvanised steel-sheeted solid core doors (pictured left with Sean) featured vision panels with aluminium surrounds. “Where other door companies might struggle, NC Doors’ computer-assisted design and manufacturing technology can easily handle complex doors like these,” NC Doors’ General Manager and Director, Barry Drewitt said. “We were working with non-standard sizes and a variety of materials, while the hardware was anything but commonplace. In the process of writing new programs for our CNC routing machine, we incorporated some very unusual door componentry into the designs.” Precisely fitting doors and seals were critical Our two most experienced installers, company Director Ian Drewitt and Sean Cummins finished the doors in our factory, adding the Colourbond metal cladding to the faces and edges of those pictured below, along with much of the hardware. One of the challenges in designing the facility was accommodating various atmospheric pressures throughout the complex, which made it critical that the doors and seals fitted precisely. Pharmaceutical facilities are kept under positive pressure to keep dust contaminants out, while the nuclear industry facilities have negative atmospheric pressure to ensure that nothing escapes. NC Doors again partnered with door installation specialists Robson Doors, who called on our technology for the project, which is being built at Lucas Heights by Icon Co, the Australian construction company which formed a combined construction services business with Cockram Construction in 2018. “While these doors certainly were a challenge, custom-made non-standard doors are what we specialise in,” Barry Drewitt said.

Builders love the flexibility and economy NC Doors offers. Being able to get doors supplied with hinges, locks, seals and any other hardware pre-fitted in our factory saves them long preparing doors for installation. However, sometimes builders like Ben Tracey, of Newcastle-based Insight Building Services, need to be able to add their own finishing touches. Keeping a handle on costs NC Doors CAD-profiled the frames before supplying Ben with seven sets of interconnected fire-rated door pairs to replace the standard doors in the suites at Kirkton Park, a luxury accommodation, event and conference venue in the Hunter Valley. “Insight is a regular client and the only reason we didn’t fit the hardware this time was that Ben was waiting on delivery of handles and locks to match the other doors in the suites,” NC Doors’ Managing Director, Barry Drewitt explained. “Ben only had to screw on the hardware. For us to be able to do everything else in the factory meant a big saving in time and on-site labour costs. And, there’s no dust and rubbish to clean up afterwards.” Quick turnarounds, competitive prices For Ben, spending hours cutting in hinge rebates and drilling lock cut-outs doesn’t add up. Not when doors can be pre-fitted and finished in our factory, then packaged and delivered to the site. “Barry responds when I need a quick turnaround and his prices are always competitive,” the young builder said. “Financially, it’s very attractive to be able to get quality doors finished to the stage that suits me for each particular job. NC Doors makes the whole process easy and with so much else to think about it’s great knowing the doors will arrive when I need them and be ready to go straight in."

NC Doors’ ability to supply custom-made timber doors precisely sized to their frames and with all the hardware cut-outs removed during manufacture offers clients huge savings on installation. But pre-fitting the hinges, locks and other hardware in our factory proved critical for Morgan Civil when the firm won a contract to upgrade a high-security data centre in Sydney. The project was relatively straight-forward: enclose existing high-voltage electrical switchboards supplying banks of internet servers at a high-security Sydney data centre to seal them from smoke, fire, dust and other debris. The challenge was that none of the construction work could be carried out on the premises. “Nothing that could generate a spark or dust was permitted anywhere near the equipment," company director, Tycho Leathbridge said. “Because we had to pre-assemble everything off-site, it was a huge bonus to have the hinges, mortice locks and smoke seals pre-fitted into the fire doors that arrived ready to go straight into the steel frames."