Automated Closure on Pavements

Donatella Bertozzi, daughter of Franco Bertozzi, the inventor of Porter® ChiudiCancello explains the birth of Porter® as the result of a constant search for an effective way of closing pedestrian gates. My father started working at a very young age. He was 14, working in my grandfather's blacksmith's workshop where he was mainly involved with the maintenance of apartment buildings. When the owners asked to find a solution to close the pedestrian gate, the only solution at that time was to install a door shutter on the column with an arm on the gate. The result was not ideal, the gate slammed or did not close at all, because, when mounted in that way, the gate closer would not work, because it was designed to pull itself. When looking at a door closer installed on an internal door, in fact, it can be noted that the pump is mounted on the top of the door and the arm on the doorframe above the door. This type of installation is not possible on a pedestrian gateas there is no doorframe above the gate. Here to remedy this situation is the Porter® box which is fastened to the gate, placed at 90° (in special cases it can be safely mounted parallel to the gate). Thus, instead of "pushing" itself to work, the door closer can work in a proper way by “pulling” itself. The result is a perfect operation, freely adjustable, in one motion, where the door automatically pushes and pulls itself back, with a slowdown and final snap (necessary to avoid electrical lock), just as with doors. Over time other companies have tried to copy this system, trying to make their products less visible, so that they might not be noticed. However, nobody has managed to obtain our results. My husband, Tino Donadei, inherited the job of maintenance of condominiums and for a good few years now has been calling for urgent action to find a way of keeping doors firmly shut. In Parma, where the Porter® was born, on many streets, our product is installed on all gates, a success down to the superbly smooth operation which makes it desirable to be more and more people.