Access Control and Door Entry in Raleigh, NC

Why buildings here move off keys

The Triangle has a lot of tenant turnover. Offices in Midtown and Perimeter Park change staff, suites get subdivided, and warehouses off Aviation Parkway run shifts with contractors and drivers coming through. Every departure means a key you cannot account for, and rekeying a building is a recurring bill with no end.

Access control replaces that with a list you control. Someone leaves, you delete the credential, and the building is secure in ten seconds. You also get a record, which matters when stock goes missing and you need to narrow a window down to a name and a timestamp.

What we survey at every door

Every opening gets assessed individually. We look at the leaf material, the frame, the swing direction, the existing closer and lock, whether it is a fire rated assembly, and how far it is from a power source and a network point. We check whether the door has a working closer at all, because access control on a door that does not latch is decoration.

We also check the threshold conditions. Exterior doors in this climate swell in August humidity and shrink in January, which is enough to stop a strike from aligning. That is worth catching at survey stage rather than in a callback.

Hardware we specify

Electric strikes suit hollow metal and timber doors in metal frames, which covers most back of house openings. Magnetic locks suit aluminum storefront glass, where there is nowhere to fit a strike. Electrified mortise locks or exit devices suit heavy traffic doors that need to stay latched.

Readers are chosen for the environment. An exterior reader on an unsheltered wall needs a proper IP rating and a gasket, because wind driven rain during summer storms will find any gap. Keypads in a kitchen or a dock area need a sealed surface that survives being wiped down.

Every door gets a position switch and a request to exit device. Without those, the system cannot tell a legitimate exit from a forced door, and you end up ignoring alerts.

Multi-tenant and shared buildings

Converted floors downtown and in Durham often carry several tenants behind one street door. We set those up so the building entrance runs on a shared schedule while each suite keeps its own credential list, and the landlord keeps an override without seeing tenant records.

Handover and admin

You get the software, the admin login, a labeled door list and a short session on adding, editing and revoking users. Nothing about the system requires calling us to make a routine change.