Rite-hite Holding Corporation

Dave Leppert

Peter S Schulte

Rodney Kern

Dean Shanahan

James Schwingle

Joe Korman

A resilient, insulated door panel for a sliding door includes a resilient core protected by a compliant outer covering with a seal disposed about the perimeter of the panel. The panel has sufficient resilience to recover from an impact that temporarily deforms it, yet has sufficient rigidity to transmit a compressive force needed for effectively setting the seals. Much of the core is filled with air to not only provide effective insulation and resilience, but to also provide an extremely lightweight door panel that can be operated to travel rapidly along an overhead track. Some embodiments include relatively rigid backup plates that provide a solid foundation to which the perimeter seals can be attached. The backup plates are segmented so as not to completely restrict the flexibility of the door panel.

Resilient door panel

A generally horizontally sliding door includes a sliding or otherwise translating door panel with a full-perimeter seal that engages sealing surfaces upon closing and at least partially disengages the surfaces upon opening. The door panel travels along an overhead track that is slightly inclined to lower the panel's upper and lower edge seals into engagement with sealing surfaces as the door closes. To provide a substantially full-perimeter seal, a leading edge seal and a trailing edge seal engage sealing surfaces as well. Some of the edge seals are joined to create corner seals. The seals are adapted for single panel sliding doors, bi-parting doors, multi-panel doors, and various combinations thereof.

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Zwingle, IA, United States of America

Dave Leppert