Standing impressively on a hillside above Melton Mowbray, the John Ferneley College is an 11-16 secondary academy and part of the Mowbray Education Trust. Named after local resident and the leading equine painter of the early 19th century, the college has performed extremely well in academic terms over the past few years, with GCSE results in the top 10% of schools nationally.

The layout of the school is divided into separate learning zones with double doors leading through from the main corridor into the Enterprise zone - for Business Studies, the Performance zone for Arts and P.E. and the Communication zone for Maths and English. These three sets of double doors provide access for a large volume of users on a daily basis, some perhaps more concerned with getting through quickly than ensuring the doors are treated gently. In other words the doors and closers are operating in one of the harshest environments in terms of usage.

The closers originally fitted proved inadequate for the job and the excessive wear and tear resulted in the doors firstly opening too far causing damage to the structure of the doors and subsequently not closing properly which is a major problem for these fire doors. Estates Manager Jeff Challis turned to door hardware specialist Relcross who recommended the LCN 4111. The bodies of these CE marked door closers are made from cast iron, the internal components are stainless steel and the units have been independently tested to 10 million cycles.

The extra duty forged steel arms are standard as are the double heat treated steel pinions. They are also filled with an all weather fluid that eliminates the need for seasonal adjustments and, should any adjustments be needed at other times, the LCN® Fast™ Power Adjust system makes them quick and easy.

Relcross Sales and Marketing Director Stuart McMaster commented “In high traffic locations it is essential the door closer specified is up to the job, although I must admit we get a lot of sales from installations where the chance of an initial cost saving has tempted someone to install a closer that just won’t cope. Instead they should have considered the whole life costs and recognised the long term savings of fitting what, we are confident, is the best closer on the market.”

This series of closers is LCN’s best performing heavy duty closer designed specifically for institutional and other rugged high traffic applications.