Fire Doors
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 [...]
If you missed the New England Chapter DHI meeting last week…a Q&A presentation on codes, the question/answer document and the handout are now available on the chapter website. You can download them here: Q&A Document / Handout You also missed out on some great examples of why fire doors and egress doors should be inspected annually! [...]
I can’t believe it has been 10 years already. I’ve seen a lot of remembrances in the media this week…it’s one of those moments in time when we’ll never forget where we were, what we were doing, who we were with, how we felt. I was about 6 weeks away from having my first child, [...]
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 [...]
UPDATE: More articles added at the bottom of the post. The other night, one of my friends (you know who you are) was talking about how I post “stories about people dying because they didn’t have the right kind of hardware.” Well, that’s sometimes true and if he got the message maybe someone else will [...]
I received these photos last week and I didn’t have much advice…maybe someone else does. These are classroom doors in a school for autistic children, and the extra locksets are due to the special needs of the students. The students are unable to retract both latches at the same time (if they can even reach [...]
The hotel in Las Vegas where we had our sales meeting had a Moroccan theme…I felt right at home since my husband is originally from Morocco and I love that style. The entrance doors to the ballroom had a pattern created by contrasting stain and oversized metal brads. They’re labeled doors so I wonder whether [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
There was a 9-alarm fire last week in Boston, in a 10-story condominium building. Several residents had to be rescued by firefighters, because they didn’t evacuate the building immediately when the alarm sounded. One resident, who waited 10-15 minutes (by her estimate) to leave, found a stairwell full of smoke and a locked door to [...]
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 [...]
If you don’t have a current copy of our handy code booklet, drop me an email and let me know how many you need. It lists a summary of door-related code requirements for the IBC, NFPA 80, NFPA 101, NFPA 5000, ICC/ANSI A117.1, the ADAAG, BOCA, SBCCI, UBC, and the National Building Code of Canada. [...]
This post was printed in the April 2011 issue of: I had heard the rumors about a change to the Life Safety Code that would exempt classroom doors from needing closers, but I finally had time to track it down. Here’s the scoop: According to the 2009 edition of NFPA 101, corridor walls must have [...]
A couple of weeks ago, someone called to ask me where in the codes it states that 12 coat hooks can not be mounted on a 90-minute rated wood door. I have to admit, that was a new one. I have no idea how or why someone would mount 12 coat hooks on one door. They [...]
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 [...]
I love it when I’m able to solve one of life’s great mysteries. Today I was asked whether a 90-minute fire rated door required a threshold. The short answer is “no” but my coworker Greg chimed in to ask about fire rated openings with combustible floor covering running through. There’s a paragraph in NFPA 80 [...]
Last week I was on a conference call for one of my projects in Washington DC, because of a problem with the specified concealed closer and the fire-rated wood door and wood frame. The door manufacturer suggested a “construction label,” and most of the call participants needed an explanation of what that was. I thought [...]
The hotel with the treacherous handicap ramp (see previous post) was actually a very nice little hotel, but it had some other code-related issues. I think all of the issues stem from the lack of stringent building codes in Costa Rica, but they’re still a little scary for travelers who happen to be door hardware consultants. Our room [...]
On Thursday, May 13th, the New England Chapter of the Door & Hardware Institute will be holding our meeting at a new location – Vinny T’s in Dedham, Massachusetts. The meeting topic is fire door assembly inspection (FDAI), and many of the local fire door inspectors will be participating in the presentations. The format is [...]
The instructors in my Fire Door Assembly Inspector (FDAI) class showed us a really handy gauge to measure clearances around fire rated doors, and since I’m going to do my first *official* inspection tomorrow I tracked one down. It can easily and accurately measure 1/16″, 1/8″, 3/16″, 1/4″, and 3/8″ gaps, and a 3/4″ undercut. For [...]
This photo of a door in a city hall came from another blog, A Firefighter’s Own Worst Enemy. The blog is written by Jason Hoevelmann, a Deputy Fire Chief / Fire Marshal with the Sullivan Protection District. Jason and the firefighters who frequent his site have a totally different perspective on doors than we do, [...]
Every time I specify hardware for a door that swings into a pocket, a little alarm sounds in my head because at least 50% of the time there will be a problem that urgently needs to be fixed at the end of the job. This application requires coordination between the architect designing the pocket, the [...]
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 [...]
I received an article today about a fire at the Evelyn Gardens apartment complex in Albany, California, which resulted in $400,000 in damage and one fatality. In the article, Fire Chief Marc McGinn is quoted several times in regard to apartment entry doors. Here’s an excerpt: ” ‘Closing doors on fires can save lives,’ he [...]
My last post referenced the term “exit enclosure”, and I received a few questions about its meaning. An exit enclosure is the enclosure around an exit. For our purposes it usually refers to a stairwell. According to the IBC, exit enclosures connecting 4 or more stories require a 2-hour fire resistance rating, and those connecting [...]
I know it’s supposed to be (Almost) Wordless Wednesday, but I have two pieces of news… 1) I FINALLY created the list of FAQs and made a tab at the top to access it. If there are other FAQs you would like to see added to that list, let me know. 2) The updated code [...]
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 [...]
UPDATE: I wanted to preserve this original post but the recommended specification section on fire and egress door assembly inspections has been updated and is available HERE. As states continue to adopt building and fire safety codes which reference the 2007 or 2010 editions of NFPA 80, the requirement for annual fire door assembly inspections [...]
A while back, I posted some recommended specification language regarding the annual inspection of fire and egress door assemblies, and I have since revised it based on everyone’s comments. The original language and comments are still here, and the updated language is below. This should be inserted into the hardware specification for projects designed 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 [...]
Feeling the Heat: Fire Doors – Building.co.uk “Incorrectly specified fire doors could, at worst, cost lives. Now a landmark legal case could mean that it’s the contractor and specifier who will end up in court.” Ten dead in Delhi factory fire, all exits were blocked – Indo-Asian News Service “Prima facie it appears that the [...]
Paul Goldense of Goldense Building Products showed me this pair of fire-rated doors last week. He mentioned that the architect had to change the arch to make it a “flatter” curve because of the rating, and that they had to use continuous hinges instead of butt hinges. Who can tell me why? UPDATE: You guys [...]
The 2007 edition of NFPA 80 contains an important change regarding the clearance at the bottom of a fire rated door. In previous editions of this standard, there was a somewhat confusing table (Table 1-11.4) listing different allowable clearance dimensions depending on the flooring material. The 2007 edition simplifies this requirement, allowing 3/4″ clearance under [...]
In 2007, the annual inspection of fire door assemblies became a code requirement that is gradually being adopted across the U.S. Given the enormous quantity of fire doors and the relatively small number of qualified fire door inspectors, implementation of this change has been challenging, but because of the appalling condition of the fire doors [...]
I LOVE THIS PHOTO! It is a building in Norrköping, Sweden, which was attached to another building that burned down. The fire doors in the photo (and the wall, and of course the valiant efforts of the firefighters) prevented the fire from spreading to this building. The building in which the fire started was very [...]
I ran across this photo today on a network security blog (click the photo to go there). –> Speaking of fire alarms, I had another request today for a lock that ONLY unlocks to allow egress upon fire alarm. In most cases, this is not code-compliant. There may be certain occupancy classifications (like detention and [...]
I’ve been writing a lot about fire doors lately, and specifically about what bad condition many existing fire doors are in. The codes have always required fire doors to be kept in good working order, but with the specific requirement for the annual inspection of fire doors it will hopefully bring more of these deficiencies [...]
First the good news. When the annual DHI conference was held in Boston, I conducted a 3-hour code class for architects (I later conducted the class for our DHI chapter.). Public speaking isn’t my favorite thing to do, so when one of the attendees approached me before class started and said, “You’re not REALLY going [...]
December 8th, 2011, was the 50-year anniversary of a fire at Hartford Hospital which caused the death of 16 patients, staff, and visitors, and resulted in many important changes to code requirements for hospital construction. Connecticut Public Television has just released a video about the tragedy and the resulting code changes. Other than the statement [...]
What you’re looking at is an existing fire rated frame with a new door that I saw recently during a fire door inspection. Most of the other doors that I inspected that day had steel hinge fillers to fill the existing hinge preps before the continuous hinges were installed. So why were a half-dozen or [...]
Once again, failure to follow fire safety and egress code requirements in a nightclub has resulted in a fire with multiple fatalities. The death toll from the December 4th fire at the Lame Horse in Perm, Russia currently stands at 112 with more than 100 people severely injured. According to news reports, plastic sheeting decorated [...]
I saw this hold open device on a fire rated door to a computer lab recently. I guess you make do with what you have on hand, right?
The 2009 edition of the International Building Code (IBC) contains an important change that’s easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. I stumbled across it a few months ago when someone asked me about the exception for cross-corridor doors without positive latching in I-2 occupancies. This exception is found in Section 709 – Smoke [...]
Every so often, I wonder what I’m going to write about on this blog after I’ve covered all of the code requirements for doors and hardware. I mean, it’s a very specific subject area so at some point I could run out of questions. And then something comes up that I’ve never looked into, and [...]
Today is the 39th anniversary of the fire at the Hotel Vendome, in which 9 firefighters lost their lives when the building unexpectedly collapsed during mop-up operations. Stephanie Schorow, author of 4 books about Boston, spoke about the Hotel Vendome fire, the Cocoanut Grove fire, and the Great Boston Fire of 1872 in this video [...]
This article was written by Carl Prinzler, one of the creators of the original exit device, at the end of the 1930′s. I think it’s an interesting insight into the development of the first exit device and the code requirements at that time. How It All Began A rambling story of the birth of Von [...]
Questions about frame labels have come up several times this week, so I guess it’s time for a post. I’ve pulled together some information from various sources and I hope some of you will chime in with your input. The most common questions on this topic are: Can a label on a fire-rated frame be [...]
I originally published the post below in May 0f 2009, but I’m trying to gather some information so I’ve pulled it up to the front again. Please take a moment to answer the quick survey about lever return in your area. Thanks! Click here to take a quick survey. Over the years I’ve heard many [...]
I recently received this photo of a door in a hospital with the question, “What does the code prescribe for lock/panic protectors on fire-rated and non-rated doors?” I know some of you will point out that the exit device is not fire-rated (evident because of the dogging hole), and others will note that the glass [...]
When I started working in the door and hardware industry, we regularly installed fusible link louvers in fire-rated doors, as allowed by various door manufacturers’ listings. Although fusible link louvers are still available, their use is limited by current codes: The IBC – 2009 does not allow louvers in smoke barrier doors in I-2 occupancies [...]
I’m getting ready to head to NYC to do a presentation for the DHI chapter there, so here are some quick photos of a cross-corridor fire-rated pair sent in by Andy Olson of Reliable Glass and Door. There has to be some sort of rule against this.
Judging from the photos, these doors may not have been code-compliant, but they were still able to hinder the spread of smoke and fire, at least to some extent. That does not mean that any old non-compliant door will be fine so we might as well stop worrying about them…one of the biggest issues with [...]
These doors are from the same children’s museum as the planetarium exit doors in the previous post. I first noticed the “mouse hole” at the bottom of one pair, and wondered why it was there, until I saw multiple other holes with wires running through. I don’t know if these doors were originally fire-rated; the [...]
A couple of weeks ago someone asked me whether the exterior exit doors for a movie theater required panic hardware, and in my opinion, the answer is a resounding YES! Movie theaters are considered assembly occupancies, and the occupant load is well over the limit (50 or 100 occupants depending on the code) that would [...]
Last week I wrote about a tragic fire in Chicago, in which Shantel McCoy was killed. I provided links to several articles in my post, but in a nutshell… a) The residents of the apartment of fire origin left their door open in hopes that their cat would escape. b) The open door allowed smoke [...]
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 [...]
Holy cow…I am bone-weary. I feel like I ran on adrenaline the whole time I was in NYC, and the 5-hour ride home in the rain and snow was the icing on the cake. The days at the DHI Conference flew by, but what a great time! I caught up with a lot of my [...]
Did you know that if you register with NFPA (free), you can access the NFPA codes and standards online? Just use this link to register or sign in. Once you’re registered, go to the list of NFPA Codes & Standards, choose the document you’d like to see, and scroll to the bottom of the screen where [...]
Next Tuesday is the proposal closing date for the 2013 editions of NFPA 80 – Standard for Fire Doors and Other Opening Protectives, and NFPA 105 – Standard for the Installation of Smoke Door Assemblies and Other Opening Protectives. If you’d like to propose any changes, either submit a proposal online or let me know [...]
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 recently received my copy of the 2010 edition of NFPA 80 – Standard for Fire Doors & Other Opening Protectives, and I spent some time today perusing the changes (indicated by a vertical line to the left of the revised text). Many of the changes are related to glazing, and there are some updates [...]
There’s an article in the May/June 2009 issue of the NFPA Journal about the inspection of egress doors and fire doors. You can access the article here. It’s an excellent overview of the inspection requirements found in the 2009 Edition of NFPA 101 – The Life Safety Code. According to NFPA 101 – 2009, the [...]
The suit was in regard to the breach of security caused by wedging open the fire door, but I thought this was kind of interesting: From the Southwark News… ‘SHUT THAT DOOR!’ 26 January 2011 A Borough resident will have to learn to ‘shut that door’, otherwise she will be breaching a bail condition imposed [...]
I got an email today about a fire rated door that would not reliably close with the closer adjusted to provide 5 pounds of opening force. I did a post on opening force for accessibility a while back, but it’s important to note that fire-rated doors are not required to open with 5 pounds of [...]
In a post about opening force a while back, I wrote that fire doors do not have to meet the opening force requirements of the accessibility codes and standards. While that IS true, someone recently asked me a question that led to this further explanation. The question was regarding egress doors in a stairwell on a [...]
This post was printed in the June 2011 issue of: Over the years, I’ve heard many people mention the rule of thumb that the rating of the fire door assembly is “3/4 of the rating of the wall.” Although the fire door rating is typically less than the rating of the wall, the 3/4 ratio [...]
No, seriously…when do we need to use overlapping astragals? This question was brought to my attention by my pal Liz Lenox, of the Metro-NY office of Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies. We were talking about why pairs of 3-hour-rated fire doors have a mortise exit device and a vertical rod exit device, rather than two vertical [...]
Last Tuesday night, approximately fifty people were left homeless by a fire at the Parkside West Apartments in New London, Connecticut, which apparently began on a stove in a 3rd-story apartment. One of the newspaper accounts of the fire investigation reported that the fire marshal stated “in the third-floor apartment where the fire is believed [...]
It was bound to happen eventually. With the 7th edition of the Massachusetts State Building Code (780 CMR), Massachusetts has joined the rest of the New England states in the requirement for doors to be tested using the positive pressure testing requirements. We have all been hearing about positive pressure for at least 10 years [...]
This question has come up a few times lately… Does an automatic operator on a fire-rated door require a fire alarm connection? The answer is YES – according to NFPA 80, if an automatic operator is installed on a fire door, the operator must automatically disconnect at the time of a fire. This ensures that [...]
There’s an exception in the Health Care chapters of NFPA 101 that I’ve always wondered about. It’s in the chapters regarding New & Existing Health Care Occupancies (18 & 19), in the section about corridors: 2009 Edition of NFPA 101: 18.3.6.3.12*/19.3.6.3.12* Nonrated, factory- or field-applied protective plates, unlimited in height***, shall be permitted. A.18.3.6.3.12/A.19.3.6.3.12 It [...]
A few years ago, an architect that I’ve worked with for over 20 years called me and indignantly asked, “Do you know the maximum height for a kick plate on a fire door?!” I answered that it was 16″ above the bottom of the door. The architect said, “Well! We tried to write our own [...]
Some creative and unusual hardware applications sent in by blog readers: From James Caron of Kamco Supply of New England, a rated elevator door with deactivated spring hinges and a luggage cart just in case they suddenly became self-closing again, and a mismatched mag-holder and armature location rectified with a chain: Sent by Bob Caron [...]
Maybe I should have a new series called “Jeff Tock’s Photos.” Jeff is one of the Ingersoll Rand trainers who travels the world teaching people about hardware, and he sees a lot of “special applications.” Jeff sent me this group of photos recently (thanks Jeff!): This bank of doors is in a large convention [...]
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 [...]
Here’s the latest batch of photos sent in by blog readers. Thanks everyone! The photos were sent in by Jim Bystry of Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies, and were sent to him by Randy Roberts of Chown Hardware. Have any of you seen a lock like this? Tell us about it! [I was originally told that [...]
I have spent this entire week at our corporate office, so I haven’t had a lot of time for posting. In return for your patience, next week I will post the third and final article from Lewis C. Norton’s “How I Discovered Door Checks.” That seems fair, right? I’m here in Carmel with about a [...]
I’ve received lots of reader photos lately…thank you, and keep ‘em coming! From Kurt Roeper of Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies, taken on his recent trip to China. In the facility’s defense, iDigHardware seems to be blocked by the Great Firewall of China, so it’s no wonder they have hardware problems. The first photo is of [...]
Here’s the second batch of reader photos. My emailbox is empty now. Not. From Steve Poe of Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies, a hospital pair that was wrong from the start. The gravity coordinator doesn’t work, which is why they want people to use the lever handle. From Hal Kelton of DoorData Solutions, some photos of [...]
I have received SO MANY reader photos lately – THANK YOU! Jim White of Doornorth & Millwork Specialties sent me a whole bunch of door photos from a recent cruise that he went on. I think I need to go do some research! Does anyone know what the little hinged panel is at the bottom [...]
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’ve spent several phone calls this week discussing “dogging” with one of my favorite clients. I guess it is kind of hard to keep straight if you’re not a hardware person. The term “dogging” refers to holding the latch(es) of a panic device retracted to create a push/pull function. When the panic device is dogged, [...]
A while back, I wrote a post about the requirement for fire doors to be self-closing, and I referenced a fire at the Rosepark Care Home in Uddington, Scotland. The fire occurred in 2004, but the results of the investigation are being reported now. I’ve been collecting news articles related to fire and egress doors [...]
Luckily, we are safely home and the hotel didn’t catch on fire, but I did take a quick tour of the place before we left. Almost none of the fire doors that I looked at were code-compliant, and I wasn’t being nitpicky. The door to our room had spring hinges and would not latch even [...]
Just when I was wondering what I should post about tonight, I received this photo from Brendan Daley of SURV. From an informational aspect, it’s a great sign…it tells the building occupants that it’s a fire door and how the door should be treated. Unfortunately, signs can’t be installed on fire doors using screws! Here [...]
This post was printed in the February 2011 issue of: It’s hard to believe that this question still comes up as often as it does, so I’m hoping to definitively answer it once and for all. The question is “Do single bathrooms require locks which release with one operation?” The question is most often asked [...]
Last year I taught a 2-day class with my friend and mentor, Zeke. As Zeke and I prepared for the class, we had friendly disagreements about several code requirements. I hate to be wrong, so whenever he disagreed I would flop open the code in question and read aloud until he cried “uncle”. But there [...]
I usually like to start with the quick and easy items on my to-do list, which is why it takes me forever to get to the big stuff. It’s a fault, and I recognize that, but nobody’s perfect. I tried to find the easy place to start this series of posts, but there seems to [...]
NFPA 80 – Standard for Fire Doors and Other Opening Protectives, is a document which most of us in the hardware industry began studying in our earliest hardware school courses and refer back to throughout our careers. This standard is THE publication on fire doors, and is referenced by all of the codes and standards [...]
It’s official. I can’t hide from it any longer. People ask me about “smoke doors” almost every day, but if you know me you know that I have a lot going on, so whenever I try to scale the mountain of information about this topic I get sidetracked by the little things that need my [...]
Here are some links to recent door-related social media activity. Enjoy! Check out Ginny Powell‘s blog post about attending an electrified hardware class and putting the information to good use on A Cracked Door. Life Safety Services tweeted this news story about fire door problems and other code violations at Campus Habitat. David Stutzman has [...]
There have been a lot of interesting door-related stories in the news lately. In case you missed my Tweets… Boy trapped in school stairwell for 9 hours – KTLA ” ‘It is normal for the door to be padlocked but it has to happen after the last person exits the building,’ Fernando Gallard of the [...]
I think I’ve seen so many non-code-compliant doors that I’m becoming numb to them. In the old days I would be spurred into action by the sight of a blocked exit or propped-open fire door. Yesterday I was at the local bagel joint and I saw their marked emergency exit blocked with stored high-chairs. No [...]
I know this looks like a really long and wordy post but you’ll be glad it’s here when you need to refer back to it. Grab a cup of coffee and skim through the first half…in case you haven’t noticed on previous posts, the paragraphs in italicized red text are the code excerpts and you [...]
I’ve obviously been slacking because this video was posted a month ago. It’s a follow-up to a report about the flawed fire safety system at the Staples Center, including problems with their fire doors. Here’s a link, in case you missed it too. Kudos to Robert Flores of Fire Door Consulting and Inspection Services for [...]
This is the 2nd post in a series about fire doors and the results of a recent survey. ————————————————————————————————– “Fire protection-rated doors provide critical protection to protect exit enclosures and compartmentalize buildings and stop the spread of fire, smoke, and toxic gases. The proper installation and maintenance of these doors is a critical part of [...]
This is the 3rd post in a series about fire doors and the results of a recent (unscientific) survey. After filtering out the confessed “door experts” (49) and the people who skipped Question #3 (11), there were 647 responses to this question. Here are the most common answers to the question “How can you tell [...]
Back to business after a brief vacation in Costa Rica… This is the 5th post in a series about fire doors and the results of a recent (unscientific) survey. Rule #2 – A fire door must be SELF-LATCHING. This means that when a fire door closes, it latches, typically with either a lockset/latchset or fire [...]
This is the 4th post in a series about fire doors and the results of a recent (unscientific) survey. The survey results included some pretty good answers as to what the rules for fire doors might be. Quite a few people knew that fire doors should be kept closed, but there’s an important clarification I [...]
This is the 6th post in a series about fire doors and the results of a recent (unscientific) survey. For anyone who is just tuning in or has lost track of this series of posts, I conducted a survey about what the general public knows about fire doors and I learned 2 things – 1) [...]
This is the 7th post in a series about fire doors and the results of a recent (unscientific) survey. The real answer to this question is “it depends.” Stair doors are almost always fire doors, main entrance doors – almost never. Offices, bathrooms – rarely. Storage, corridors – sometimes. You get the picture. As a [...]
This is the 8th post in a series about fire doors and the results of a recent (unscientific) survey. I have kids in elementary school and preschool, and I know about the financial crisis most of our schools are facing. The school system in our town is trying to overcome a $10.3 million budget gap [...]
A couple of weeks ago I posted a survey to find out what people know about fire doors. The purpose was to test my theory that the reason fire doors are improperly modified and damaged hardware is left unrepaired is because people don’t realize a) which doors are fire doors or b) what can or [...]
A temperature rise door is a fire-rated door which limits the heat transfer through the door for a period of 30 minutes. Temperature rise ratings indicate the maximum rise above ambient temperature on the non-fire side of the door, and will be either 250°, 450°, or 650° F. The 250° door is the most restrictive because it limits the heat transfer to [...]
My only hesitation in posting these photos is that they are probably the best photos of Doors Gone Wrong that I have ever seen, and any future photos will pale in comparison. These are the holy grail of bad door photos, which I received from Eyal Bedrik of Entry Systems Ltd. in Israel. According to [...]
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 [...]
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). [...]
The fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City on March 25th, 1911, claimed 146 lives – mostly young immigrant women. Building owners locked the exit doors to keep the workers in and the union organizers out, so when a fire broke out on the 8th floor it was impossible for some of [...]
March 25th, 2011 is the 100th anniversary of the deadliest workplace accident in New York City’s history (with the exception of 9/11) – a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in which 146 people were killed. This tragedy will be the subject of an episode of the PBS series, American Experience, airing tomorrow – February [...]
It’s tough enough to get anyone to pay attention to fire doors, but when a fire is a result of a “voodoo sex ceremony,” there’s little to no chance that anyone will take note of the role played by the propped-open fire door. In a 5-alarm fire in Brooklyn on February 20th, the door to [...]
When I lived in a condominium complex in the mid-90′s, I don’t think I gave much thought to fire safety. I remember hearing the fire alarm in the middle of the night and going out to my balcony to see if I could smell smoke. If not, it must be a false alarm. That seems [...]
I saw both of these doors today, in two different facilities. Yes, they are both fire rated. One is a cross-corridor pair and one is a stair door.
Sent in by an anonymous fire marshal who is getting quite the education in fire door assemblies.
Photos posted with permission from Newcastle University.
Photos posted with permission from Newcastle University.
Thanks for your patience, everyone. My week “off” was followed by our Thanksgiving holiday, so I haven’t posted as much lately. But I’m back, and I saw lots of doors while I was away. A question was sent to me recently by Dr. Nabil Hanna of Merryland International in Egypt. I ran out of ideas [...]
Which product application do you use when you have doors that open back-to-back and need to close upon fire alarm? I was just explaining my preferred option to a specwriter last week, and then these photos arrived…perfect timing! When I have a door on an electrified hold-open that opens against the wall, I prefer to [...]
How many more fires is it going to take before people understand that closed and latched doors save lives, code-compliant fire doors are self-closing and self-latching, and annual fire door inspections will make sure they stay that way? It’s simple, really. But the message is not getting through, and people continue to die – this [...]
Wait a minute - WHAT??? For several months I’ve been trying to find out more about the research that was conducted years ago regarding the use of a mullion on a pair of doors. It could be one of those urban legends of door hardware, but as the story goes, when a university tested egress through a [...]
