Swedish door manufacturer is ubiquitous in Dutch high-rise buildings

For example, Daloc, through assembly partner HSE of Zaandam, is providing all 487 indoor apartments of the Zalmhaven Tower with a fire, sound and burglar-resistant residential entrance door.

Text | Roel van Gils  Image | Daloc

What began as a one-man business in 1943 has grown into a multi-million dollar company. Today, the third generation of the Johansson family is at the helm of one of Europe's most modern door manufacturers. "We specialize in producing (CE) certified steel fire, sound and burglar-resistant doors (SKG3) for multi-storey residential construction," says Jack Kenters, Country Manager at Daloc Netherlands. "The great thing is that the doors are available in all kinds of finishes and patterns, where we always assume a total package. That is, a Daloc door is always developed, produced and certified completely as a set, including frame, lock, hinges and composite sill."

A Daloc door is available in a variety of finishes and patterns.

Flexibility within one concept

In fact, the focus for the Netherlands for now is on one type of door set, and the Swedish manufacturer is not exactly doing that without success. Kenters does have an explanation for this. "Daloc doors are developed and certified as a set. In addition, steel is a material that does not or hardly deforms. Once assembled, a Daloc door will not hang easily and it can take a beating. This means a long life and no or rare maintenance. Within the same concept, we can also vary a great deal in terms of design and requirements, whereby the door thickness and/or frame or in other words the overall concept remains the same. A higher noise protection (38-50 dB) can therefore easily be combined with a fire resistance of 30 or 60 minutes." In addition to fire resistance, the fire propagation class is also very important. "For materials in enclosed traffic areas of residential buildings, for example, there is a fire propagation class that must comply with class B in accordance with NEN-EN 13501-1. The doors leading into these spaces must therefore also comply with class B. Daloc doors are made of steel and thus already comply with at least class B, but class A is also possible. Not many other door suppliers offer such a high degree of flexibility within one concept."

Once installed, a Daloc door won't hang easily and it can take a beating. That means long life and no or infrequent maintenance.

Oiled machine

At 215 meters, De Zalmhaven will be the tallest residential tower in the Benelux. "The Daloc door concept was adopted at an early stage," Kenters knows. "This because of positive experiences in other realized projects of the developer. We prepared the project from our sales office in Alphen aan den Rijn and in the meantime handed it over to our trusted installation partner HSE from Zaandam. Before the summer, HSE started assembling the doors, basically following the schedule of main contractor BAM. In doing so, HSE communicates directly with the factory in Sweden where the steel home access doors are produced on demand. This runs like a well-oiled machine."

Besides the Salmon Harbor Tower, Daloc doors are being used on many more housing projects in the Netherlands. "But we are only at the beginning of growth. We also have plans for the Netherlands to become one of the largest in the future. True, we still have a long way to go, but we have every confidence in the product and the organization that we will make this happen. The foundation for this has already been laid."