Glass Door Repair & Installation NYC

Frameless glass doors are common in Manhattan office suites, building lobbies, showrooms, and the inner doors of a vestibule. With no frame to hold them square, everything depends on a few pieces of hardware: a patch fitting clamped to the top and bottom corners of the glass, a top pivot in the header, and a floor closer set into the floor below. When one of those wears, the glass takes the stress. Here is what we check on a glass door service call and what each fix involves.

Floor closers: the part that does the work

On most all-glass doors the closer is not overhead. It sits in a metal case set into a pocket in the floor, with a spindle that drives the bottom patch fitting. It controls closing speed and, on many models, a hold-open position and a center stop so the door comes to rest in line with the opening. Signs it needs attention:

• The door does not stop centered and rests slightly open to one side.
• It closes too fast, too slowly, or speeds up partway through.
• There is oil on the floor cover plate, or water standing in the pocket.
• The door swings freely with no resistance, which usually means a broken spring or spindle.

Many of these are adjustments. A closer that leaks or has lost its spring has to be replaced: the door comes off, the old unit is lifted out of its case, and a replacement with a matching spindle and the right strength for the door goes in. Floor closers fail early when mop water and winter salt get into the pocket, so lobby and street-level entrances see it most. Our floor check door closer comparison covers the main types.

Patch fittings and pivots

Patch fittings grip the glass with gaskets and bolts and connect it to the pivots. If the bolts loosen or the gaskets compress, the glass slips inside the fitting, the door drops and starts to rub, and the gap at the lock edge changes. The top pivot in the header can also wear or work loose. We retighten or replace the fittings, renew worn gaskets and pivots, and re-hang the door so it swings level. Catching a slipping fitting early matters, because metal touching the edge of tempered glass is a common reason a panel shatters.

Locks on a door with no frame

An all-glass door has nowhere to put a standard lock, so it uses one of three arrangements: a patch lock in the bottom fitting that throws a bolt into a strike in the floor, a center lock where a pair of doors meets, or a lock housing clamped to the glass at the edge. When these stop locking, the door has usually dropped or the floor strike has filled with grit, so the bolt no longer lines up. Fixing the hang and clearing or resetting the strike comes first; the cylinder or lock body is replaced only if it is worn. Where staff need card or fob entry, electrified hardware made for glass doors can be tied into an access control system.

Replacing the glass

Glass in doors must be safety glazing, and frameless doors use thick tempered glass. Tempered glass cannot be cut or drilled once it is made, so a replacement panel is fabricated to exact size with the holes and notches for its fittings already in place. In practice:

• We measure the opening and the existing hardware, not just the old glass, since the hang may have shifted.
• The opening is secured while the new panel is made.
• The new panel goes in with new gaskets, and the pivots and closer are checked before it is hung.

Chips at the edge or corner of a glass door are worth reporting right away. Tempered glass with a damaged edge can fail all at once, sometimes days after the damage.

Repair or replace the whole door

Most frameless doors can be kept in service by replacing hardware. Replacing the whole door makes sense when the glass is damaged, when the fittings are an old pattern that no longer matches available parts, or when the opening is changing, for example to add an operator; see our automatic doors page for that. Aluminum-framed glass entrances on retail fronts are a different system, covered on our storefront door page.