Know who opens every door, and lock it from your phone. Keycard, fob, mobile, and PIN entry — UniFi Access and cloud-managed systems with a full audit trail and remote control.
One crew, one quote, and none of the “that’s not in scope” surprises. Here’s what a ClearMax access control & door entry installation job includes.
Door controllers and readers mounted and wired at each entry point.
Keycards, fobs, mobile credentials, and PIN codes provisioned for your team.
Door hardware installed and wired, with request-to-exit and fail-safe/secure logic.
Time-based access, holidays, and per-door permissions configured to how you operate.
Every unlock logged, searchable, and exportable for compliance or investigations.
Lock, unlock, and manage credentials from anywhere — no on-site keypad juggling.
From first walkthrough to hand-off, you always know what’s next and what it costs.
We assess each door, existing hardware, and power, then design the access layout.
Per-door pricing, itemized. Coordinated so your entrances stay usable during the work.
Controllers, readers, and door hardware installed, wired, and tied to your network.
Credentials issued, schedules set, and a quick walkthrough so your team owns it.
We install for specific industries and speak their software and compliance. Find your specialist page:
Every quote comes down to this decision. Here is the honest comparison we give before anyone spends a dollar.
Cheapest per credential and universally understood. They also get shared, lost, and — on older 125 kHz proximity formats — cloned at a kiosk. Choose encrypted credentials and a platform that kills a lost card in seconds.
Functionally identical to cards, but they survive a work belt and a job site. Warehouses and field crews prefer them for durability alone. Same rule applies: encrypted only, instant revocation, full audit trail.
The phone becomes the key over Bluetooth or NFC. Nobody forgets their phone, credentials issue and revoke remotely in seconds, and there is no plastic to clone or reorder. Slightly higher reader cost, and you want a PIN fallback for the dead-battery morning.
Free and universal, which is exactly the problem. Codes get shared, texted, and taped under desks — and a code alone never tells you who walked in. Use PINs as a second factor on sensitive rooms, not as the front door.
Our recommendation for most businesses: mobile-first with card or fob backup, PINs only as a second layer on sensitive rooms. The credential type matters far less than whether the platform can answer “who opened this door, and when” without guesswork. Full breakdown: keycard vs fob vs mobile access.
Most failed access-control installs fail at the opening, not the software. What your door is made of determines what hardware is even legal to put on it.
Narrow-stile doors cannot take a standard electric strike — the frame will not hold it. The right answer is electrified panic hardware, or a surface magnetic lock paired with a compliant egress device.
The friendliest opening in the building. Electric strike or electrified lockset, clean conduit, straightforward inspection. Most warehouse and back-of-house doors land here.
Surface-mounted plates can be restricted, and in some districts reviewed. Concealed hardware and transfer hinges preserve the door and keep the work reversible.
You cannot modify a fire-rated assembly without voiding its listing. Only listed hardware goes on these, and the fire-alarm interface is mandatory, not optional.
Vehicle and pedestrian gates run on the same credential set as the building, with their own schedules for drivers and contractors.
Often the cheapest upgrade path — electrify the device you already have rather than replacing the opening.
NFPA 101 requires that people can always get out. That single rule drives most of the design: request-to-exit devices on controlled openings, fail-safe release when the fire alarm trips, and fire-official review where magnetic locks or delayed egress are involved. Electrical work follows normal permitting. We settle the fail state of every door — fail-safe on egress paths, fail-secure on interior sensitive rooms — document it in a door schedule, and coordinate the alarm interface, so inspection is a formality rather than a return trip.
Practices must control and document access to areas holding patient records and medications. An audited credential satisfies that; a shared brass key never can. See access control for dental & medical practices.
Carriers increasingly ask about physical access to server rooms and network equipment. A door log is the evidence, and it pairs with the controls on our cybersecurity page.
Financial and professional firms need to answer who could reach the file room, with a record and a retention policy chosen deliberately rather than left on a vendor default.
We quote flat and itemized per door, because per-door is how the cost really behaves. These are the variables that move it:
Controlling three doors that matter beats controlling twelve that do not. Most buildings start with the main entry, the office, and wherever records or money live.
If the opening already has a panic device we can electrify, cost drops. If the frame needs replacing, it rises. This is why we survey before quoting.
Open ceilings and accessible walls are cheap. Cored masonry and surface raceway are not. New construction is the cheapest access control you will ever buy.
Cloud platforms trade a subscription for no server to maintain and remote management from anywhere. For most businesses under a hundred doors, cloud wins on total cost.
Required where code says so. Budget for it up front rather than discovering it at inspection.
High-turnover operations should weight mobile credentials, which cost nothing to reissue.
Full walkthrough with the line items: what access control installation actually costs.
Engineer-designed door schedules, installed by vetted local crews. Columbus is our home market — our address is in Sunbury — and we cover Middle Tennessee through the Nashville metro.
Columbus — home market, same-day site walks across Franklin County and the surrounding suburbs.
Nashville · Franklin · Brentwood · Murfreesboro · Hendersonville · Mt. Juliet
Dental & medical practices · commercial security systems · warehouse security · office buildings
CCTV cameras, structured cabling, and full office IT buildouts — one crew, one coordinated schedule.
Moving to a new space? Cabling, circuits, phones and the rack all have to land in the right order — see office relocation IT services for the full move plan.
Line-by-line, so you know what every dollar buys.
No subcontractor roulette. One accountable team.
Hardware at our cost. We don’t mark it up.
Want us to keep it running? Roll it into managed IT.
Yes. Cloud-managed systems let you lock, unlock, and manage who has access from anywhere, plus see a live log of every entry.
Usually not — we retrofit access hardware onto most existing doors. We confirm during the door survey.
Every door event is logged, searchable, and exportable — useful for HIPAA, insurance, and incident review.
Every photo below is our own work — the hub wiring, the egress hardware, and the finished reader. This is what a properly documented, code-compliant install looks like when it is finished.
Tell us about your space in Columbus or Nashville. We’ll follow up with a flat, itemized quote — usually same day.
ClearMax Labs — install and managed IT for business across Columbus, OH and Nashville, TN.
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