I Dig Hardware / I Hate Hardware

Jan 26 2012

It’s Official!

Category: General Info — Lori @ 4:13 pm Comments (31)

It’s official – I have a new job (woohoo!). For the last 3 years while I’ve been getting to know all of you and putting as much code/application information on this site as possible, I have also been managing our specification team for New England. At times it has been a struggle to do both, hence the late-night blog posts.

But this part of my job is what I love to do, and I strongly believe that it’s valuable to the door and hardware industry and beyond. So I proposed a new role, a lot of people within our company supported it, and the position was created. I am so excited to have this opportunity, and it’s terrific that the company recognizes the value of what I do.

I’ve spent the week in San Antonio at our annual sales meeting, and it has been a very informative and energizing week. My new position was announced here, and of course everyone wanted to know what I was going to be doing. The title is Manager, Codes and Resources, and I will be working to develop needed resources (many of them code-related but not all), for use internally by our employees, and externally by hardware suppliers, architects, end users, security integrators, code officials…anyone who needs the information. I have a lot of ideas and I will be prioritizing them over the next couple of weeks while helping to transition my spec team through the changes.

I will continue my blog as an official part of my new role, and I’m planning to expand it and improve it now that I have a little more time to devote to it. I think it’s a great way to share information and have two-way conversations. We had a guest speaker today, Lee Corso, who stressed the importance of relationships, and then mentioned that social networking makes relationships more difficult to create. I respectfully disagree. I have gotten to know so many of you in the last three years, even if we have not yet met face-to-face. I hope you feel the same way.

I recently found out that my blog was nominated for an Ingersoll Rand Chairman’s Award, after receiving a President’s Award last year. Convincing the voters of the value of social media, blogging, and codes vs. the other great nominees may be a long shot, but I’m thrilled with the exposure iDigHardware has received in the process. By serendipity, celestial alignment, or some other guiding force, I ended up on the escalator with our chairman, Mike Lamach, the other night. We had a few minutes to talk, and I was surprised to find out that he was well aware of the site, and knew about the engagement of the readers. You’re famous!

I look forward to my new job, and to continuing to work with all of you on whatever you need to help understand and communicate the codes or any other facet of our industry. Feel free to leave a comment at any time…I read every one and would love to hear your ideas about what would be useful to you. And if you have an opinion about using social media to develop “real” relationships, I’m all ears.

Jan 25 2012

Edge Channels

Category: Fire Doors,Panic Hardware — Lori @ 1:20 am Comments (14)

Even though I risked being called a weirdo by my colleagues, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try to learn more about the 5″ wide edge channels that are sometimes required on fire-rated wood doors with concealed vertical rod exit devices. When these channels show up on the jobsite without warning, architects tend to be less than pleased. The interesting thing about these doors is that although they have the channels and fire exit hardware, there are no visible labels on the doors or frames. It’s possible that the door label is on top, although the concealed closer channels take up most of the real estate up there. We explored ways to check the top of these super-tall doors, but it will have to remain a mystery unless we can sweet-talk our way onto the lift they use to change the lightbulbs.

So, back to my question…some combinations of door manufacturer, rating, and concealed vertical rod exit device manufacturer require the channels, others don’t. I’d love to compile some sort of matrix to show these combinations, but the information is hard to find.

I found a VT Industries chart here, which notes on the 20-minute pages that doors with concealed vertical rod devices require the 5″ channel, but there isn’t a similar note on the 45-, 60-, and 90-minute pages.

I also found an Eggers bulletin here, stating that the edge channels are not required for Category A pairs up to 8′ x 8′

Here’s one from Algoma Hardwoods, which seems to show the 5″ edge channel for all ratings and all exit devices except one.

If you have any information from other manufacturers, or modifications to the information above, let me know!

As I said yesterday, there are a lot of beautiful design details here at the hotel and conference center. I love these light fixtures. To get an idea of scale (think HUGE)…the wood panels look to be about 4′ x 8′.

P.S. For those of you who noticed the plunger stops and oversized undercuts, two brownie points for you.

Jan 24 2012

Access-Controlled Egress Doors

Category: Electrified Hardware — Lori @ 1:26 am Comments (4)

I’m in San Antonio, Texas at a beautiful hotel and conference center for our annual sales meeting, and there are A LOT of doors with mag-locks. Check out the coordination of the bank of pairs below…concealed closers, overhead stops, and mag-locks all coexisting in the same space. Notice that the mag-locks have a split armature to save space vs. a double-magnet. Every pair has a motion sensor, a push button, and a key switch, presumably for locking and unlocking the mag-lock. I would not typically specify a separate key switch for each opening in a bank of doors, but nobody asked me.

And while we’re on the subject of mag-locks, how about another quiz question? You can enter the monthly drawing every time I post a new question and the drawing registration doesn’t give me your quiz results, so go for it!