Designing a better door

By Emma Peterson. 

Learn how Central States is revolutionizing a $44 billion dollar industry with their innovative door and hallway systems. 

Around the end of 2024, Central States Manufacturing announced their Sentry line, which offers products such as roll-up doors and hallway systems for metal buildings. These products, while valuable in a variety of applications, are specially designed to boost the self-storage industry. To learn more about these systems, Karen Edwards hosted Shannon Conrady, Central States’ marketing director, for an episode of MetalCast™. 

The true triumph of the Sentry door and hallway systems began during the product development stages. A key point in its design is how the engineering team gave the doors a dead axle. Shannon explained, “Typical self-storage doors don't get any larger than a 10x10 and a dead axle design is usually used for 20x20 doors. By using that design on the smaller door, our Sentry doors have an extended lifetime because the springs are all equally tensioned with the same amount of stress, making it much easier to maintain.” 

In addition to this unique design choice, the engineering team chose to use a music coil spring. The big reason for this is that the steel in the music wire spring doesn’t run the same risk of getting brittle and breaking as the traditional black coil tempered tension spring. Shannon shared a bit more about this during the conversation. “In addition to being able to withstand more stress, these music wire springs do not require any additional lubricants. There's no maintenance associated with that, which is music to a self-storage owner's ear,” she shared. 

Beyond thinking about the structure of the Sentry systems themselves, the Central States team was careful to think about how these doors and hallways would be installed. Shannon explained, “There was a very intentional approach to the installer's experience with the Central States door. Some manufacturers have a variety of fasteners and sizes, so you have to practically carry your toolbox with you when you go to install it. The Central States store uses the same fastener for jam, the bracket and the doorstop. And so, there's just one fastener size in the hardware bag.” And that same hardware bag is also tailored to the specific unit it goes with; no bulk packing. This means that installers not only save time installing the door but also save time cleaning up their workspace! Shannon emphasized, “While we recommend hiring a professional, this door is very consumer friendly. In theory, a homeowner or do-it-yourself kind of person could even install it.” 

Read the transcript, Listen to the episode or Watch the recording to learn more about Central States’ Sentry systems.