Galvanised Roller Shutter Doors in Cape Town

Galvanised steel is the working default for roller shutter doors, and Cape Town is the one market where we regularly explain that galvanising on its own is not enough. Inland it is a complete answer. Within a few kilometres of this coast it is the first layer of a system rather than the finish.

How a galvanised roller shutter door is built

• Hot-dip galvanised slats in a gauge chosen for the span, the duty and the wind exposure.
• Galvanised guides, wind locks and bottom rail, because the coating has to cover the whole assembly to mean anything.
• Barrel and shaft sized on deflection across the actual opening.
• Fixings and hardware in a grade chosen for the corrosion zone.

Galvanising alone, and where it stops being enough

Galvanising protects sacrificially, which is why a scratch stays a scratch rather than blooming. In salt air the zinc is consumed considerably faster, and near the surf a coating weight that would last twenty years inland can be visibly going in five. That is not a defect, it is the environment doing what it does. The answer is a duplex system: heavier galvanising with a marine-grade topcoat over it, which lasts far longer than either layer would alone.

Where standard galvanising is the right answer

Through the Northern Suburbs, out at Blackheath, Brackenfell and Kraaifontein, and on the inland side of the flats, ordinary hot-dip galvanising with a normal coating is entirely adequate and we quote it that way. Selling every customer a marine specification would be easy and dishonest.

Galvanised doors for Cape Town industry

Loading and workshop bays through Epping, Montague Gardens, Killarney Gardens and Airport Industria run galvanised doors because they are repairable and replaceable. A damaged slat is swapped out; a scratched coating is not a crisis.

Hardware is what fails first

End locks, fixings, bearings and bottom rails go before the curtain does, every time, on a coastal door. Stainless and coated hardware costs more per item and removes the repair that otherwise returns every second year.

Gauge, span and wind

Slat gauge follows span, exposure and cycle count. On an elevation facing the south east we specify up and fit wind locks, because a curtain held in its guides only by luck will eventually leave them.

Maintenance and expected life

Serviced twice a year on the coast and quarterly close to surf, with the salt rinsed out of the guides at each visit, a properly specified galvanised door lasts a long time here. Where one is failing early, the coating was almost always specified for the wrong zone.

What a galvanised roller shutter door costs in Cape Town

Priced on opening size, slat gauge, coating system, hardware grade and drive, quoted as separate lines after an on-site measure.