Most magnetic holders provide 20-30 pounds of holding force, and can be released manually by pulling on the door to separate the door-mounted armature from the wall-mounted magnet. The signage here tells me that the magnet is probably not anchored to the wall properly, and I guess adding a sign is one way to fix the problem.
Thank you to Charles Anderson for today’s Fixed-it Friday photo!
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Not necessarily Lori,
I have seen some cases where they definitely could have used a switch to release cross corridor fire doors. For some reason, the owner wanted them closed every night.
After months of people yanking the door off of the magnet, the hinge screws started getting loose.
The torque and vibration of pulling loose so often caused the mineral core around the screws to start chipping away. Tiny little pieces, but they add up after a while.
They eventually had to replace that pair matched, factory finished, 90 min rated fire pair of doors.
Very expensive, as I am sure you can imagine.
A wall switch and a simple sign would have helped a lot.
We advise all of our health care clients to posts signs like this on all doors that are held open, only to get them into to the habit of using the release or interrupt buttons. It really does not apply to the the doors with wall magnets but specifically to doors with electronic closer hold opens. Manually holding open and releasing a door dozens of times every day leads to premature wearing of the hold open mechanism. Again, its to reinforce the habit of using the interrupt button.
Do your clients actually post signage? I don’t remember ever seeing one, but I agree that with the closer/holder units it’s definitely better to use the button.
I thought you had to move the door out of the way so that you could press the button.
I can’t tell if that’s the button on the magnetic holder, but it would be pretty inconvenient, and they’re usually mounted pretty high.
That is definitely the magnetic holder http://www.sdcsecurity.com/EH-Series-Magnetic-Door-Holder-and-Releasing-Device.htm
My mistake, I thought you mean “I can’t tell if that’s the button ‘OR’ the magnetic holder,” I can’t tell for sure but it does look like it could be a button.
I notice you have mentioned using a release button to close cross corridor doors rather than pulling them closed. Having never added that feature is this necessary, good practice, or just a preference of the specifier or user.
I work with many hospitals so this is important to know.
Hi David –
This is not something I’ve commonly seen done (sign and switch). I’ve never specified a switch to release magnetic holders, but from Dan’s comment it sounds like there could be a need for it if the doors are closed often. A lot of cross-corridor doors, especially in hospitals, just remain open indefinitely.
– Lori
Forget the hardware implications, I cringed at the unnecessary quotes around “CAUTION”.
Some other funny “”‘s pictures including doors with suspicious quote mark usage.
http://news.distractify.com/people/the-30-most-unnecessary-uses-of-quotation-marks-in-history/