This Fixed-it Friday photo is from Paul Goldense of Goldense Building Products. Paul will be teaching a fire door class with Jeff Batick of Allegion at the NFPA conference next week (with more photos like this one!). If you’re heading to the conference, don’t miss their class!
And about the photo…I’m wordless!
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The rod was bent by being hit?
So they installed a bumper?
Most likely.
– Lori
I remain amazed that manufacturers who make vertical rod devices with exposed rods have not done a better job of making them so that they might work for more that a year. This situation is far too common. We could do a picture a week of damaged vert rods. Either stop making them, or make rod guides that will protect the rods. Just a thought. Lori, can you make that happen? 🙂
Got any ideas? We made the less-bottom-rode device, and then the concealed vertical cable in hopes that it would solve some of the issues with concealed vertical rods so they would be used more often. For a low-tech solution we have the RG-27 rod guards. It’s the old catch-22…we can’t stop making them until people stop buying them, and people won’t stop buying them until there’s a perfect solution and/or we stop making them.
I’m all ears! 🙂
– Lori
It looks like the rod is on the hinge side of the door?? Or is the jamb in the photo not the jamb for that door?
This is the strangest looking opening. I assume that’s a metal edge/astragal and the door just happens to swing against the frame on the left. Otherwise its a strange looking continuous hinge with edge guard and the device is installed wrong. I’ll assume the former. But it seems odd to see two openings so close together. Not exactly code compliant, though there is no door now. Maybe it was supposed to be a cased open frame. In any case, hospitals have some very creative maintenance folks.
Or the rod was too long… 🙂
I agree.
This opening happens to occur just next to a building joint where we are seeing the wall and floor expansion joints covering the gap between buildings or wings. Not another door frame, but kind of looks like one.
Also looks like that bumper may have been there before the last “hit” that bent the rod and cracked the “creative” slot.
Yes, it’s unfortunate that this is a common occurrence with surface mtd rods and has been left up to the creative side of users to deal with. Such as the case above. And if the manufacturer tried to deal with it, the result would most likely be even more unsightly or visually unpleasant as well. So the answer to this age old problem is to belly up to the bar and specify concealed vertical rods so that everyone feels better for it, not to mention a much better appearance too.
Thanks for sharing Lori,
Walt
To me, that “frame” on the left along with the panel on the floor is an expansion joint, used when two separate buildings join, or an addition is added. I think the hinge is out of frame to the right.
One things about hospitals is if there is something they can hit with a cart, they will hit it. If there is a guard, they will hit just above or below the guard. Never fails.
Believe half of what you see and nothing that you hear. I don’t believe it’s another frame- I would say that it is an expansion joint in the building. It looks like the “rod guide” has been banged up plenty so this probably isn’t a fix to the bent rod. I am guessing something on wheels at just the right height beat the rod up. I would agree with Lori that the RG-27 is the proper hardware for this application but LBR is best, especially when there is no security concern.
Vertical rod devices are *always* problematic. We recommend single point rim devices with a removable mullion be utilized whenever possible.
I do too, but not for cross-corridor pairs, especially in health care.
– Lori
VD Does make Stainless steel covers for bottom rods.
I think they were pretty innovative using the knob guard as a guide but
apparently the machine that hit it was higher than they thought.
It looks like they use a ride on floor cleaner/polisher much like the ones the custodial
staff in our school district use. They can be murder on lower rods, and windows close to the floor.
We call the machines “Zambonis” and the janitors drive them like they are in a hockey rink.
We had one hallway door have it’s inside knob torn off, reason unknown. We replaced the lockset and the next day it had it’s knob torn off again. It turned out the Zamboni has a tapered side which would ride under the knob and pop it off as the machine passed. That door now has a deflector under it like the one in the photo. In our case it worked!
Problem the cost of LBR on a pair of 90 min doors adds 650.00 per leaf for proper stiles for the fire pin. From MT to NM every Hilton chain I stayed in I could not find a pair of FD installed per NFPA 80.