Archive for January, 2011
Today I went to a performance at a theater on a local college campus. The theater has 650 seats, so all of the required egress doors are supposed to have panic hardware. There are 4 pairs in the main lobby, all equipped with paddle devices which don’t qualify as panic hardware. One of the requirements [...]
I received a giant batch of photos today from a deputy fire marshal, and I could barely wait to post them. Whenever I get photos or comments from code officials I feel like the nerdy kid who got to sit with the cool kids at lunch one day. My favorite photo of the bunch is [...]
The other day I posted some photos of a fire door that had done its job and prevented a fire from spreading. Several of you emailed me about the photos, because they’re SUCH a great illustration of what a fire door is for. It’s easy to imagine what would have happened if it was propped [...]
If you’re not familiar with Wordless Wednesday (WW), it’s when bloggers post a photo which speaks for itself, without any words to gum up the experience. This post isn’t technically wordless, but here’s the first WW photo: Photo courtesy of Robot_Cowboy, via Flickr. Permission granted 1/13/11.
Sometimes I feel like a broken record. Like maybe people are sick of hearing me talk about fire and egress doors, how they protect us, and what happens when they are disabled or neglected. When I meet someone, I don’t immediately launch into a discussion about doors because I’m pretty sure they’ll think I’m a [...]
Considering how many photos I took of doors during my Mommy’s weekend at Foxwoods, it’s a good thing I’m not a gambler. I wouldn’t have had any time to check out the doors if I was stuck at the slots. I can’t imagine what Las Vegas will be like…I hope I don’t get arrested like [...]
For exterior pairs I prefer to use rim panic devices with a removable mullion, but in some cases surface-mounted vertical rod devices are specified and supplied. When vertical rod devices are used on cross-corridor doors, I often specify them “Less Bottom Rod” (LBR), but on exterior doors I specify them with both top and bottom [...]
My inbox is overflowing with reader photos again. Thanks everyone! From Jerry Heid of Advantage Lites and Louvers / Zero International, a gravity closer on a restaurant entrance: From Adam King of Vulcan Lock, a reminder of why closers shouldn’t be installed on the exterior: From Nolan Thrope of Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies – Metro-NY, [...]
This feels like some sort of milestone – I have published 365 posts on this blog. 365!!! That means if I stopped posting today, someone could read one post per day for the next year and hardly miss me. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been able to find 365 things to talk about related [...]
The first time I ever saw a wicket door, it was for a post office project and I was working on the shop drawings. I haven’t run into a whole lot of them since, but I saw a pair last weekend and risked the embarrassment of my friends to take some photos. The employee at [...]
Here’s another interesting application that I saw at Foxwoods. These plastic covers were on all of the automatic operator actuators in the conference center. These are being used for one of two purposes, I’m not sure which: 1) the cover prevents people from pushing the button when the door is latched, which causes undue strain [...]
As promised, I have some photos to post from my recent trip to Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Connecticut. I don’t typically mention the locations of the photos I post, usually because I don’t want to get in trouble for showing their code violations. Well, I’m not a gambler so I had plenty of time [...]
This post was printed in the January 2011 issue of Doors & Hardware A while back I wrote a post about spending time in a maternity ward, which was a completely locked unit requiring remote release from the nurses’ station to exit. Although the 2009 edition of NFPA 101 allows egress doors in certain health [...]
I’ve been doing some research for my FDAI presentation, looking for specific examples of how the inspection of fire doors and correction of deficiencies can have a direct impact on life safety as well as the protection of property. It’s not very often that you see fire doors in the news, but these two recent [...]
I received lots of reader photos while I was going on and on about hotel doors. Here they are! From Mark Lineberger of Valley Doors & Hardware, a view of a bottom latch that most people never see. I wonder how many bottom latches on rated doors are actually able to engage in the strike. [...]
These are the last few miscellaneous photos from our vacation, but never fear…I’m headed off for a Moms’ Weekend on Friday so maybe I’ll have some good (G-rated) spa photos for next week. Hover your cursor over any photo for a description, click the photo to enlarge.
We’re back from our vacation, but I have some more photos to share before I finish up this unplanned series on hotel doors. As I mentioned in an earlier post, our hotel was a series of buildings connected by propped open, non-latching, damaged doors which were originally fire rated (as indicated by the painted labels). [...]
