Archive for March, 2009
I am running into more and more all-glass doors on my projects, and in the words of one of the contractors I’m working with, “Doors are being asked to do things they’ve never done before.” I’ve had large glass panels pivoting at the center, glass doors acting as opening protectives in fire-rated walls, and glass doors [...]
Remember him? I guess I’m dating myself if I admit that I do since he made his debut in the mid- to late-80′s, right around the time that Bill Lawliss, John Gant, and I all graduated with degrees in Architecture from Vermont Technical College. Just think where we could be now if we took those [...]
I readily admit that I get excited about things that wouldn’t excite the average U.S. citizen but that’s part of my charm. I think this product is very cool. It’s the PLS Frame Set, and it’s a quick and accurate way to verify the alignment of door frames. When a door isn’t functioning properly, [...]
Last week I conducted a 3-hour class for the New England Chapter of the Door & Hardware Institute. The class is available to any hardware suppliers, architects, or end users in New England who need to understand code requirements related to doors and hardware, including recent changes to the Massachusetts State Building Code, and the 2006 [...]
I recently conducted a fire door assembly inspection and I noted that many of the existing frames had old holes that had been patched with Bondo filler putty. NFPA 80 requires that holes left by the removal of hardware must be filled with steel fasteners or with the same material as the door or frame. [...]
In the last 2 days, a certified fire door inspector and a hardware supplier have both asked me where it is stated that Maine and Massachusetts have adopted the 2007 edition of NFPA 80, which includes the requirement for the annual inspection of fire doors. In Maine, it’s pretty easy: Office of State Fire Marshal, State of [...]
I’ve been asked this question so many times you’d think I’d know the answer by now. By the way…the photo at left doesn’t have much to do with the question, I just think it’s funny. Yesterday I was having lunch with my hardware friend and mentor, I’ll call him Maxwell*. Maxwell asked me whether a [...]
According to the International Residential Code, the door between a private garage and a single family home must provide protection from fire. The picture to the right is from a fire department website describing how the door between the garage and the home protected the rest of the residence and its occupants. The door must be [...]
I saw this homemade security device on a local high school a few years ago. The school had been having trouble with their computer lab door, and this was their solution – a bent bar in 2 hasps welded to the door. This is not code-compliant, as the codes require one motion to exit under [...]
Don’t let this happen to you! If you have an application that can’t accommodate a standard closer, LCN has thousands of special templates and engineers standing by to help. Some of my favorite special templates are the track closer for a door with rescue hardware, closers for arch-top doors, and the templates that move the concealed closer [...]
I think this has to be my all-time favorite photo (so far) of Doors Gone Wrong. If you don’t immediately recognize what you’re looking at, it’s an ingenious solution to a leaking closer – a little cup attached to the closer arm to catch the drips. I wonder how often they have to empty it. [...]
I don’t know what I was thinking. This should have been the very first post!
In the Good Old Days when I was a more frequent nightclub visitor, I remember trying to exit through a club’s main entrance at closing time and encountering a locked door. The manager had locked the door to prevent more people from coming in. The vestibule was dark, and the dark bronze storefront door had [...]
One of the top 5 questions which I receive almost weekly is regarding the replacement of a 5′-wide equal pair with a 3′+2′ unequal pair. Because automatic flush bolts and a coordinator can be problematic, and most panic hardware will not fit on a 2′ wide door, I’m constantly being asked if it’s ok to [...]
This morning a customer asked about using continuous hinges to change the hand of a pair of rated doors (inswing to outswing), in an equal rabbet frame. I couldn’t think of any objections – the existing hinge preps would be filled with steel fillers in compliance with NFPA 80. The continuous hinges wouldn’t require a hole [...]
Building codes have historically contained requirements for safety glass in and adjacent to doors, with an exception that allowed the use of traditional wired glass in fire-rated doors and frames. There was a time when traditional wired glass was the only option for fire-rated doors, but that is no longer the case. The 2003 Edition [...]
According to NFPA 101 – the Life Safety Code, a building is considered occupied when it is open for general occupancy, open to the public, or occupied by more than 10 people. I couldn’t find a similar definition in the International Building Code, so I called the ICC (membership has it’s privileges), and the consultant [...]
