My daughter Norah and I went to New Haven yesterday for what will hopefully be our last trip to Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital.  Thank you to everyone who has inquired about her…she’s doing great and is back to her old tricks.

I saw this set of gates near the hospital and I immediately recognized that the *interesting* design element at the top was for the purpose of mounting the door closers (Norah:  “Mom.  Gates are NOT exciting.”  Me:  “What IS exciting?”  Norah:  “Candy and toys.”).  LCN has several special templates for gate closers, and they don’t always look quite so obvious.  Gates are tough though…the gate construction rarely offers enough space to attach the hardware, there are major security issues, and the hardware is usually exposed to the weather.  Gates often need to meet egress requirements, and sometimes gates need to be operated by access control like a card reader or a remote release.

There are 3 pedestrian gates here, with one as the “active” gate.  Two gates are for egress only, and are equipped with exit locks (no lever on the outside).  The other gate has a lockset, and also an electromagnetic gate lock like the Schlage Electronics 390G.  All of the gates have LCN closers.  Everything seems to be operating well, although the closers are showing some signs of the constant exposure.  I would typically specify special rust inhibitor (SRI) for closers exposed to the weather, which provides some extra protection from corrosion.  The electromagnetic lock presents an interesting code application, because the gate would normally require a motion sensor and emergency push button to release the lock from the egress side, but someone could potentially actuate the release devices from the secure side.

Someone asked me yesterday about what I recommend for panic hardware that is exposed to the weather.  I usually use Von Duprin 55 or 88 series crossbar devices with a bead of sealant between the panic hardware and the door.  If I have to use touchpad style panic hardware I use the Von Duprin 33 or 99 series with weep holes drilled in the mechanism tube, and the internal components have to be kept extremely well lubricated.  Panic hardware can add to the security problems depending on the design of the gate, so the bottom line is that it’s difficult to specify gate hardware that is secure and also meets egress requirements.

If you have any advice about gates, I’d love to hear it! 

Here are some photos of the New Haven gates:

   

 

And here’s another gate that I saw recently:

 

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