Revolving Doors: The Entrance to A Better Work Environment

The revolving door is a three-way (or four-way) door that revolves around a central shaft. https://advanceaccess.ie/revolving-doors/

There is a small motor used to operate the doors, so they revolve at a consistent speed. Most businesses initially invest in revolving doors to solve traffic congestion issues with incoming and exiting traffic, but the doors also have other advantages that far outweigh the regulation of building traffic.

The notion of the revolving door has been around since the 19th century. Inventor Theophilus Van Kannel obtained a U. S. patent for his three-way storm door. The door was created to rotate with no noise, and it was made to keep dust, rain, wind and snow out the building. Since the door only turned in one direction, it also helped to direct the flow of traffic to prevent people from bumping into one another.

In 1907, the concept of the revolving door was so widely accepted that the Van Kannel Revolving Door Co.—Kannels’ very own manufacturing company for crafting the revolving doors—was sold to International Steel (currently named International Revolving Door Co.)

What people fail to realize is the use of revolving doors in a commercial building has a significant environmental impact. Controlling the amount of air that flows in and out the building helps keep a consistent temperature range that also helps on utility costs.

Your air conditioning and heating units will love the reduced strain thanks to having revolving doors—especially in high rise buildings (which are becoming popular in our modern society). The 2006 MIT study on revolving doors revealed that a considerable amount of energy is wasted when people enter and exit their campus buildings. To provide adequate cooling and heat to compensate for the loss of air from the revolving doors of one campus building, 98,912.8 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy is needed for adequate energy usage for the entire year.

A total of 6.5 single-family households can live off that amount of energy for an entire year. This same amount of energy can also be used to burn a 100-Watt light bulb for 37.8 years. It takes over 18 tons of CO2 to produce that amount of energy each year for one building of MIT’s campus. Just imagine how much energy is consumed by the entire campus! If U.S. office buildings consume up to 40% of all energy consumed in the U.S., then employing the use of revolving doors would drastically reduce CO2 emissions and energy consumption.

Despite the benefits of revolving doors, few people have embraced the idea of using them. The MIT study pointed out that only 30% of U.S. businesses have revolving doors on their buildings. MIT has proposed that more awareness (via publishing their research) would influence more businesses to consider how the incorporation of revolving doors in their architectural designs could provide another avenue for promoting. In other words, promoting the use of revolving doors can create a culture of energy conservation that influences more and more people to change their habits towards sustainability.