Guides
Hotel Fenestration: What a Spec Sheet Actually Asks
A hotel brief arrives as a set of rooms that behave differently: a lobby entrance that has to look like money, a corridor where a door is judged by how it holds, a guestroom window that must close against noise from a road, and a service stair nobody photographs. A specification written for one of those will fail the other three. This guide reads a hotel package line by line and shows what each line has to say before a factory can quote it.
The entrance writes its own specification
A hotel entrance is a cast aluminium door before it is a door. The leaf carries the design, the weight and the traffic, so the schedule names the pattern, the leaf size, the frame and the finish rather than a series number. The hardware has to survive years of openings and still close the leaf onto its gasket. Ask for leaf and frame as one assembly, and ask for the finish sample on the cast face, where a colour reads differently than on an extruded section.
Corridor doors and the fire line
A guestroom corridor is a fire compartment, and the door on it is specified as an assembly: leaf, frame and ironmongery together, rated as one. The range covers hotel, apartment, institutional and metal door lines, marked with catalogue fire ratings quoted against the opening and the wall type. A hotel schedule should name the door type, the wall it sits in and the hardware, then confirm the rating for each opening against the project enquiry rather than against a catalogue page.
Guestroom windows: noise before view
A guestroom window answers two questions, how much road noise it keeps out and how far it opens for cleaning or air. Both follow the section more than the glass. An insulating unit at 5-20A-5 does the bulk of the acoustic work, and a leaf that compresses onto an EPDM foam gasket around the whole perimeter closes the last path. A multi-point lock with a keyed handle draws the sash flat instead of pulling it at one point.
One finish across the phases
A hotel is finished in phases, and the second phase is where a scheme drifts. Fix the finish once: anodised, thermal transfer or fluorocarbon, with RAL matching and two-tone faces quoted on request where the facade and the interior palette pull apart. Then hold that finish across the entrance, the corridor and the guestroom. A sample on the actual section is the only reference that survives a change of contractor between phases.
Phased supply and the mock-up room
Hotels open floor by floor, so the order is released by floor and the container plan follows the opening sequence. A mock-up room built from the first batch settles the interfaces before the rest is produced: the reveal, the sill, the blind pocket and the door frame. Frames and glass may travel separately where a floor is not yet secure. Dates are confirmed with the quotation once the series, the finish and the glazing are fixed.
FAQ
Frequently asked
What does a hotel window specification have to state?
The opening schedule with clear sizes, the glass build, the finish code and the hardware. For the entrance it also states the leaf pattern and the frame as one assembly. For the corridor it states the wall type and the ironmongery. A line that omits any of those is finished on site by whoever is holding a screwdriver.
How should corridor fire doors be described?
As an assembly rather than as a leaf. Name the door type, the wall it sits in, the swing and the hardware, and ask for the catalogue fire rating in writing against that opening. The figure that applies to a specific opening is confirmed with the project enquiry. The leaf, the frame and the ironmongery are then supplied, finished and inspected together.
Can one finish cover an entire hotel?
It can, and it should. Anodised, thermal transfer or fluorocarbon, held with RAL matching across the entrance, the corridor and the guestroom, and two-tone faces where the interior palette differs from the facade. A second colour turns one production run into two and shows up first at a phase boundary, where the two batches meet on the same elevation.
How is a hotel order phased?
By floor or by wing, following the opening sequence. Each release carries its own packing marks, so a crate goes to the floor that is ready rather than to a store room. A mock-up room from the first batch is checked before the next release. The dates are confirmed with the quotation once the series, finish and glass are fixed.
Do guestroom windows come with acoustic glazing?
They come with an insulating unit at 5-20A-5 as standard, and a different build is quoted on request where a room faces a road or a plant room. The unit is only part of it: the gasket line and the lock that draws the sash flat decide whether the last gap is closed. Write the requirement per elevation, since two sides of a hotel rarely hear the same street.
Send your opening schedule
Series, glazing and finish come back as one quotation, with the full dimensional pack on PDF and CAD on request.