Maybe I should just stop wondering about doors and spend more time contemplating world peace, but sometimes I can’t help myself. I’m staying in what looks like a fairly new hotel. After driving into the secure parking garage, I entered through this pair of doors into an elevator lobby (these are the only doors in the elevator lobby):
The doors don’t have any type of lock on them – there is typically someone at the vehicular entrance to the garage and the elevators require the room key to access any floor except the main lobby and parking levels.
Here is the elevator lobby for reference:
The next morning I attempted to leave the elevator lobby through the same doors, but could not open the door on the right.
Of course I stopped to check it out, and clearly the surface bolt was added to the LHR leaf. But why? Any theories? (I’ve got one.)
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Is that an overlapping astragal from the active leaf onto the inactive? Maybe that’s the answer.
I’m gonna go with Bob on this one. Overlapping brush seal/astragal with no coordinator.
Use to have security locks on one door, but was removed?
The one door was going to have a security lock, but never installed, but plans called for the slide lock and it was installed??
So was the slide lock,,, locked when you first walked in, and or at all times ?
Just a guess. But could it be that they didn’t like the hold open closer arm on the door opening into the path of travel. So instead of replacing the arm they just put in a surface bolt.
Windy condition/area and use to blow the door open?
Almost all people would be coming around the corner or around the handicap space from other parts of the garage and they did not want the door opening from someone exiting the lobby against them? With the railing to the right of the opening as you look at the pair from the garage people would not be approaching from that side so they force everyone to use the RHR door to prevent injury to those approaching the door from the left of the opening?
They should put an “I’m with stupid >” sticker on the fixed in-active
I agree with Brad. The door was (or potentially was) hitting people in the face as they were coming around the corner to enter the elevator lobby.
Since others have already covered the “astragal” and “active – inactive leaf” angles, I’ll go with another theory: maybe movement of the elevators created air pressure variations in the elevator lobby which periodically popped one or both leaves of the door open.
I agree with Brad Miller.
I think Bob Caron is right. If you look at the weather stripping on the active door, it may be acting as an astragal. Their solution was either a surface bolt or a coordinator. Unfortunately, they probably don’t even know that coordinators exist.
Agree with Brad. Although maybe the brush weather-strip does overlap – it’s hard to tell from the photo.
I am guessing people were getting smashed in the face with door coming around that corner from their vehicles.
Door was hitting the fire horn.
It has a small astragal on it now, but seeing all the holes in the door means it probably had a much bigger overlapping astragal originally.
I’m going with; “There used to be an astragal on the active door.” This was removed as the doors tended to be crossed in spite of the surface bolt.
The giveaway for this is the row of holes on the inside of the active door. They would have installed the brush weatherstrip on the outside to cover the holes on that side. This is one of our favorite tactics when we remove astragals when installing mullions to camouflage the damage left behind.
Not sure but let’s take down the closer and put up a Senior Swing Operator and the Door will be a whole lot more interesting
Underground car park on one side, elevator lobby on the other but the open isn’t fire rated? I’m surprised.
What is that on the wall in the first picture, could it be access control to a mag lock that was never installed . that is split astragal but only one piece installed, looks like
the installer installed other piece on inside and then found out that doesn’t work.
Wow – What worries me is that the carpark doesn’t appear to be sprinklered, there appears to be no FRL separation between the lobby and carpark. Plus no exit signs nor emergency lighting evident. So glad we don’t build like that here.
Simple. Order was made to secure the lower doors cheaply. Slide bolt on one door and placing a bar across the two doors after 11pm or on special occasions. Cheap ,fast and reversible. Evidence removed daily in the early morning.
Lori
So, what’s your theory?
My theory is that the original astragal condition was interfering with the doors closing in the proper sequence, but it could also be the traffic-around-the-corner theory. The vast majority of the parking spaces are not around the corner, but the ones around the corner are the most likely to be filled.
– Lori
A few questions:
1. What hotel is this? (It’s ok if you don’t answer!)
2. It seems a little odd that they put in the megaphone-style fire alarm speaker (above the “P1”) letter, these are usually only found in large, open areas.
@Ian Childs: Look closely at the ceiling, the silver pipes are sprinkler pipes.
PS: Shouldn’t that door have an automatic operator?
I’m surprised the leaf w/o the slide bolt doesn’t have a keycard reader connected to a maglock.