Maintenance of Window and Door Systems: Ensuring Longevity and Safety in Buildings
2026-06-12
Preventive maintenance best practices and legal requirements for conventional and fire-rated window and door systems, ensuring performance, durability, and compliance with fire safety regulations.
The window and door systems of a building are among its most heavily used components, subjected to continuous wear from daily operation and constant exposure to weather conditions. However, maintenance is often neglected until critical failures occur. For architects, property managers, and building owners, understanding that maintenance is not merely an aesthetic concern but a technical and legal necessity is essential.
The Importance of Preventive Maintenance
Regular maintenance of window and door systems serves three main objectives: preserving thermal and acoustic performance, extending the lifespan of materials, and ensuring user safety.
- Preserving Performance
Poorly maintained window and door systems gradually lose their air and water tightness properties. Deteriorated sealing gaskets or misaligned hardware can result in water infiltration, draughts, and reduced acoustic insulation, compromising occupant comfort and increasing energy costs.
- Extending Service Life
Aluminium and steel are durable materials, but the accumulation of dust, salt deposits, and pollution can lead to galvanic corrosion or deterioration of surface finishes such as powder coating or anodising. Periodic cleaning and lubrication of moving components help prevent premature wear of rollers, hinges, and locking mechanisms.
What to Do: Essential Technical Procedures
Effective maintenance should follow the manufacturer's guidelines (in accordance with EN 14351-1) and include the following steps:
- Cleaning Profiles and Tracks: use water and neutral detergents. It is particularly important to clean the bottom tracks of sliding windows and doors to prevent dirt from acting as an abrasive agent on the rollers.
- Inspecting Gaskets and Seals: check the elasticity of EPDM gaskets and the integrity of perimeter sealing silicones. Rigid or cracked seals should be replaced to maintain watertightness and airtightness.
- Adjusting Hardware: adjust locking points, hinges, and tilt-and-turn window mechanisms to ensure smooth operation and airtight closure without excessive force on handles.
- Lubrication: apply suitable lubricants to all moving components and friction points at least once a year (or every six months in coastal areas).
Fire-Resistant Window and Door Systems Maintenance: A Legal Obligation
While maintenance of conventional window and door systems is considered best practice, maintenance of fire-resistant systems is a strict legal requirement in Portugal under the Legal Framework for Building Fire Safety (SCIE).
The Responsibility of Certified Companies
According to Decree-Law No. 220/2008 and Ordinance No. 135/2020, maintenance of fire-resistant doors and glazed systems must be carried out by companies duly registered with ANEPC (National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority). A certified metalworking company ensures that maintenance activities comply with the Initial Type Testing (ITT) requirements and maintain conformity with EN 16034.
Specific Fire-Resistant Maintenance Procedures
During the maintenance of fire-resistant systems, specialist technicians inspect critical elements that a standard installer may overlook:
- Self-Closing Mechanisms: verify that the door closes completely from any opening angle and that the door coordinator (on double-leaf doors) functions correctly.
- Intumescent Seals: check that the seals designed to expand under heat exposure remain intact and have not been painted over, as this would compromise their effectiveness.
- Fire-Resistant Glass: inspect for bubbles, delamination, or discoloration that may indicate degradation of the fire-protection interlayer gel.
- Certified Hardware: ensure that any replacement components (hinges, locks, panic bars, etc.) carry CE marking and remain compatible with the original certified system.
Safety Records and Civil Liability
All maintenance interventions on fire safety systems must be recorded in the building's Safety Log Book. Failure to maintain proper records or the use of non-certified maintenance providers may result in:
- Administrative Offences and Fines: issued by ANEPC during periodic inspections.
- Loss of Insurance Coverage: in the event of a fire, insurers may refuse compensation if maintenance was not carried out by a certified company.
- Criminal Liability: where injuries or fatalities occur, building owners or managers may be held liable if compartmentation systems fail due to inadequate maintenance.
The maintenance of window and door systems is an investment in both property value and occupant safety. While maintenance of conventional systems focuses on efficiency and durability, maintenance of fire-resistant systems is fundamentally concerned with safeguarding human life.
Using a specialised company certified by ANEPC is not merely a matter of quality—it is the only way to ensure that, at the critical moment of a fire, the barrier between safety and danger performs exactly as it was designed to do.
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