Craig Beranek knew from years of witnessing doors from Schweiss Doors in action, that someday, he would be ordering one for himself. That day came with the construction of a new cold storage building with an additional connected shop at his rural Lafayette, MN, home. His 18' x 16' bifold liftstrap door features a pair of 4' x 3' windows, an automatic strap latch system, remote opener and Schweiss interlocking insulation that gives the door a nice clean look from the inside.

Beranek is a general manager for Fastenal, where he has worked for more than two decades. One of his major accounts is Schweiss Doors, which he has been visiting weekly for years.

“One of the things that intrigued me about the Schweiss bifold door is the strap latch system,” Beranek says. “I always like the quality of Schweiss doors. Over the past 18 years that I've been selling Fastenal products to Schweiss, I’ve seen improvements that have been made to Schweiss doors starting from the cable doors to strap doors, manual latches to the cable latch system and progressing to the new latch strap. I had some people come and look at the door and when they walked up to it when it’s closed, I pushed on it, and it doesn’t move; it locks tight.”

Beranek holds a degree in automotive and diesel mechanics and loves to tinker with repair and maintenance; it’s always been hobby for him. His shop is set up as a two-part, two-use building. The cold storage portion is 54' x 72' (3,888 square feet) and his shop is 40' wide x 48' deep (1,920 square feet). On the north side is a porch that runs nearly the length of the building with 12' of it exposed to the open. The back half contains two rooms that serve as an office and utility room. He is in the process of building an L-shaped mezzanine inside the main part of the shop that has in-floor heat, a bathroom and kitchenette.

The door was installed and sheeted by Saw Works Construction of New Ulm, Minn. That same company also erected the buildings, supplied by Cleary Building Corporation.

“The building is a partnership between me and my dad, Roger, who farms and who will store machinery in the cold storage portion,” Beranek says. “Future plans are to install a car hoist in the shop portion. Technically, I hung the door myself, Cleary did the finish trim work and Rick Meyer, a Schweiss installer, came out to advise the Cleary guys on how to do the rest of the install. The guys from Cleary Building Corp. had done Schweiss bifold doors before, but had never dealt with the interlocking insulated panels. Now, they don’t want to build one the other way.”

Beranek initially went back and forth on whether to choose a hydraulic or bifold door.

“I started leaning toward a hydraulic door, partly because of the one-piece design where I could put two lights on the inside to extend my shop,” he says. “When I saw the quality of the bifold door, I told my dad that I was going to put it in my shop. When he looked at it, he notices you get the full clearance inside the building that you don’t get with an overhead door. It also has a nice canopy; you can park closer to your door and it’s designed nicely for snow clearance. All that aside, what I really like best about my door is how it looks from the inside when it’s closed.”