Archive for December, 2010
Hopefully you’re not getting sick of my vacation photos because I’ve got a few more. This post has a special bonus at the end though – something I’ve NEVER seen before. This facility is an assembly occupancy which I’d estimate has an occupant load of a couple hundred people. The main entrance has no door [...]
Today is the 107th anniversary of a tragedy at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, which shaped the early codes and led to the invention of the panic device. More than 600 people lost their lives in this fire, making it the deadliest theater fire and the deadliest single-building fire in United States history. Article from [...]
The kids have been enjoying the very cool indoor wave pool in our hotel, and I, of course, have been checking out the swimming pool egress. My family thinks I’m weird, but what do they know? The pool enclosure has an area of 8,200 square feet, and swimming pools are considered Assembly occupancies. According to [...]
I don’t stay in flea-bag motels – I really don’t. That’s why it amazes me that almost every hotel I stay in has extreme issues with their fire doors. I’m on a short vacation with my family, and as you can see from the graphic on the right, the resort consists of several connected 2-story [...]
I typically try to stick to more technical topics or photos of creative applications related to doors, but I’m on vacation so I’ll be posting random photos and thoughts as I’ve done on other road trips (like these: Chip Falcon’s Road Trip, Escape to Costa Rica, Maine/VT 2010). I don’t usually write about one brand [...]
The blog has hit the big time! American Express wants to give Idig Hardware a gold card!
I’m working on a post for tomorrow that will solve another hardware mystery (regarding closers on classroom doors), but in the meantime, a couple of housekeeping issues… You may have noticed that a “HELP” button was added in the header a while back. If you have a question, I’d really appreciate it if you could [...]
I’ve talked about this before, but the question still comes up almost weekly – “What’s the code-compliant solution when replacing a pair of doors in a 5′-wide opening?” In the Olden Days, there were lots of 5′-wide pairs of doors (and various other widths less than 6′), but today’s codes require at least one leaf [...]
I’m in the mood to clean house (figuratively speaking only), so here’s the latest collection of reader photos to hit my inbox. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to send them. More, please. These are from Nolan Thrope of the Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies office in New York City (hover to read [...]
Fire doors and egress doors are critical for protecting life safety and property, and inspections can save lives. The news reports speak for themselves: 26 killed in factory fire – 12/15/10 – The Daily Star “Witnesses said four out of seven exit staircases were closed. Desperate to flee the heat and smoke, some workers jumped [...]
This post was printed in the December 2010 issue of: Someone brought this to my attention yesterday and I thought there had to be a mistake. I was handed a slide from a recent presentation on NFPA 72 – National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code, which said that all exit doors with access control had [...]
Last spring, one of my friends sent me a link for a “den-cam,” where Lily the black bear was hibernating and eventually gave birth to her cub, Hope. There were over 20,000 people watching the den-cam for the big event. I was not one of them (although someday I would love to have enough leisure [...]
All the discussion about the unidentified piece of antique hardware reminded me to create a post about the invention of the door closer. Luckily, the story of the original LCN door closer was written down in approximately 1937, and I have reproduced it in this post. This story is near and dear to my heart, [...]
[I added an update at the bottom of this post!] Today I ran across a couple of photos of an unidentified piece of hardware on an amazing photography blog – Shorpy.com. The site contains thousands of high definition photos, most from between 1850 and 1950. The images are so detailed I could explore them for [...]
For several months I’ve been working on a short presentation for code officials about Fire & Egress door Assembly Inspection. I really HAVE been working on it, just not continuously. In my defense, it’s really easy to get sidetracked when you get 100 emails per day. But there’s one sure-fire way to get me focused, [...]
When I started this blog, my goals were to organize all of the code information I had into a searchable database, and to offer a more painless way to learn about hardware. I think one of the hardest things about starting out in this industry is the way most of us learn about it – [...]
I received these photos from a fire inspector in Texas who shall remain nameless so he’ll keep sending me the crazy stuff he sees in his travels. If you recall from earlier posts, an egress door has to look like a door, and can’t be disguised in any way. This egress door is in a [...]
When I teach a code class, I often begin by talking about some of the tragic fires that have shaped today’s codes. Because of the lessons learned from these fires and the code changes that resulted, the safety of building occupants has been greatly improved. I talk about the role that doors played in the [...]
