Vänerhamn replaced vertical fabric doors with bi-folding doors, which cost less to maintain and get hit less often because they open sideways in both directions at once
When Vänerhamn in Karlstad needed a broken fabric door repaired, installing a brand new automated bi-folding door from Torverk came to almost the same price.
4,000 tonnes of paper a day
Vänerhamn in Karlstad runs an unheated warehouse of 60,000 square metres, usually filled to the walls with giant reels of paper heading to or from the Skoghall and Gruvön mills. Around 25 people work there every day, loading and unloading 4,000 tonnes of reels that arrive and leave by lorry, ship and rail.
Forklifts wreck the door leaf
Traffic in and out of the warehouse is relentless. So once or twice a year a forklift driver or a lorry hits a door before it has finished opening, and destroys the bottom rail. That gets expensive. The fabric alone for one of the larger doors costs SEK 30,000, and then comes the labour to strip it out and fit the new one. The operation takes a hit too, because the forklifts have to route through other doors until the damaged one is repaired.
Vertical doors get broken more often than sideways ones
You might assume the drivers are careless. According to Lilie Jansson, a salesperson at PBAB Svets och Portservice in Karlstad, impact damage on vertically opening doors is nothing unusual.
"Sectional overhead doors are common in larger industrial buildings, and they get broken more often than doors that open sideways."
"These old fabric doors open vertically. Every opening is a risky moment, because the driver's view upwards is often blocked by the forklift mast. They simply cannot see whether the door has finished opening."
Klas Garp
They cannot see whether the door is fully open
Klas Garp, operations manager at Vänerhamn, has an explanation.
"These old fabric doors open vertically. Every opening is a risky moment, because the driver's view upwards is often blocked by the forklift mast. They simply cannot see whether the door has finished opening," he says.
Even small damage costs
Small damage gets expensive too, Klas says.
"Two repairs can cost as much as buying a whole new door."
Looking for something else
So at the start of 2021 Klas and a colleague started looking for another solution. The requirement was that the doors had to open and close sideways rather than upwards. They should be automated, and preferably both faster and more robust than the old fabric doors.
"We asked a few different door companies, and PBAB in Karlstad could offer a bi-folding door from Torverk that looked promising. So we bought one to test the concept. We had no idea how the forklift drivers would take to driving through a door that opens sideways instead of upwards," Klas says.
"These doors open and close faster. The drivers can see clearly when the door is fully open, so in the past year we have not had a single impact."
Klas Garp
"Bi-folding doors are the new standard for us"
The first bi-folding door went in during spring 2021. A few months ago Vänerhamn fitted a second, and a third is on the way. Apart from some trouble early on, Klas is happy with the result.
"The motors played up a bit at the start, but that was sorted as soon as we reported it, and now we can see that this is the new standard for us. These doors open and close faster. The drivers can see clearly when the door is fully open, so in the past year we have not had a single impact," Klas says.
Update, 19 February 2026: After four years in service, Vänerhamn has not had a single impact on its bi-folding doors.
Facts
Vänerhamn replaced three vertical-lifting fabric doors with side-opening bi-folding doors from Torverk. Each door measures 7.7 metres wide and 6 metres high, with a motor and automatic opening. The doors were installed by PBAB Svets och Portservice in Karlstad.