Last weekend I opened the door to a sports facility where my son was attending a birthday party, and I saw an interesting (to me) application.  My three friends scattered when they saw me whip out the camera…I still don’t know why it’s so embarrassing to be seen with someone taking a picture of a door, but it seems to be a universal reaction unless you hang out with other hardware people.

Sports facilities such as hockey rinks, indoor soccer arenas, and even the locker room/gymnasium areas of educational facilities are very difficult environments for doors and hardware.  I don’t know if the doors are experiencing the effects of the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat, but they’re always in terrible shape.

The entrance doors to this particular sports facility had a pair of narrow stile aluminum doors with flush bolts and a deadlatch.  The flush bolts were projected so the active leaf was getting a workout.  The original hinges (only 2 per leaf) had been replaced with a continuous hinge on the active leaf only, and when I opened the door I heard a horrendous screeching sound and looked up to find the source.

A chain stop had been added, apparently to replace a lighter-duty chain stop (or spring) of some sort.  There was no evidence of an original stop on either the exterior or vestibule doors, and the closer had been replaced at least once.  There were plenty of other sad doors inside the facility.  I just love the way they painted around the existing hardware (below)…I suspect that door maintenance may not be their top priority.

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Anyway, the lesson of the day is that every door needs a stop.  For a facility like this I would use the LCN 4111 closer x ST-2730 special template and a Glynn-Johnson 90 series overhead stop.  This application would require doors with a wider top rail but in my opinion a high-abuse facility shouldn’t have narrow stile doors anyway.

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Here’s an image from special template ST-2730 with the overhead stop in yellow and the closer in blue.  For the complete template or for application assistance, contact your Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies representative or the LCN Engineering Department.

Graphic courtesy of LCN Closers.

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