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Today’s Wordless Wednesday photos are the kind of photos that give me chills. Imagine that you are moving your mom into an assisted living facility, and you notice that the door closer on every fire-rated apartment entrance door has been disconnected and the arm taped to the door. The doors are no longer self-closing, even though that is required by code. You mention it to someone from the facility and they say that the residents like to keep their doors open and that it also allows staff to reach the residents more quickly.
If you’ve been reading iDigHardware for a while, you might remember the posts about the Rosepark Care Home in Scotland, where 14 residents died during a fire. Some of the door closers had been purposely deactivated for exactly the same reasons as this assisted living located in the Southwest US. From the transcript of the inquiry into the Rosepark fire:
“Mr McNeilly said: ‘If a fire develops in one of those rooms that goes undetected, it could easily leave the room and go into the common escape area, which in turn puts all the other rooms at risk in that corridor. So the most important thing in that area is to keep the doors closed.’
Failing to do so could allow smoke and flames to ‘overwhelm’ the corridor, he said, jeopardizing an escape route which the other residents in that area of the home would rely on.
But last week, the inquiry heard that safety closure arms had been removed or disconnected from at least nine residents’ bedroom doors on the ground and lower floors.
Joseph Clark, Rosepark’s former general maintenance manager, said he had done so at the request of relatives, who complained that the heavy fire doors limited the ‘independence’ of some elderly and disabled residents, who would struggle to open them on their own.”
There are products available that would make the doors more easily operable, but there is obviously a cost associated with the change. What would you suggest to the facility?
Enforcement of the annual fire door inspection requirements would help to prevent situations like this. Why is adoption of these requirements happening so slowly?
I know it’s WW, but WWYD?
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Nice
I also wonder why nursing homes and assisted living, keep burning??
I know one Fire Marshal had a relative in a large assisted living. It had No smoke detectors in the sleeping rooms????
The AHJ said not required, so the FM, who was ahj in another city, kept asking.
The ahj for the place finally figured out they read the code wrong!!!!
I have seen this in assisted living facilities. Its difficult to get people to understand the danger that could occur if there was a fire.
Lori,
How was the assisted living in your post classified as to use? Is the facility equipped with fire sprinklers (it does not appear to be)? Are the doors required to be fire doors, or do they just happen to be fire doors?
Assisted living facilities are regulated on a state-by-state basis, so there is no uniform set of standards applicable to all assisted living facilities across the country. Some states may permit individuals who are incapable of self-preservation to reside in an assisted living facility; some may not. This would have an impact on how the facilities are classified as to use.
An assisted living facility in the IFC and IBC could be classified as one of several different occupancy groups, even within a single edition of those codes, so not every assisted living facility governed solely by those codes is necessarily the same. They might be classified as some level of Group R or Group I occupancy, but also might only be subject to the IRC, depending on the number of residents or their ability to self-evacuate, or the adopted edition of the code.
In states where assisted living living facilities must comply with NFPA 101, the state licensing standards generally classify the facility as a Residential Board and Care Occupancy or a Health Care Occupancy. Neither of these occupancies would require the resident sleeping rooms to be separated from the corridor by a fire barrier with opening protectives. Later editions of NFPA 101 do not require self- or automatic-closing doors, or fire doors, separating resident sleeping rooms from corridors in Residential Board and Care that are equipped with fire sprinklers. Health Care Occupancies have not required self- or automatic-closing doors on resident sleeping rooms for decades, if ever. The requirements for both Residential Board and Care and Health Care Occupancies expect those doors to resisted the passage of smoke and be equipped with positive latching hardware.
In states where there is not a statewide building code or fire code, the local requirements may differ from the state licensing standards, because the state may use NFPA codes while the local municipalities usually us ICC codes.
This. In the years I have working at nursing home facilities this has never been the case. Most buildings I’ve seen, smoke compartments separate sections of the floor into individual compartments with its own set of fire rated doors. Resident rooms are only separated from the hallway by smoke doors and there is no requirement for these smoke doors to be self closing. Granted all the places I’ve seen were fully sprinklered.
I am surprised they could get through a Joint Commission / CMS / BOH survey.
Magnetic hold opens that release on fire alarm could be costly depending on the amount of doors. If they are doing it to allow the residents to feel more connected I would suggest half glass lites. That would keep the residents from feeling closed off and allow the employees to see into the room if there was an issue.
Instead of simply removing the closers, the GMM should have investigated if they were adjusted correctly, to begin with. I find it hard to believe that persons living independantly cannot push open a door that resists just five pounds of force.
(It is usually on the backswing that people get smacked by those heavy doors !)
I, too, have seen this in assisted living facilities. One place DID actually rectify the situation after I spoke to the head of facilities management.
If it was one of my elderly relatives I was ask for to to be put on. After that I would work with the management to upgrade the opening to a product that what close the door upon an alarm event. But why isn’t the annual insurance or fire door inspections picking these up sooner?
Well, that’s not good…
Solution is quite simple. Advise ALF management of your observations and the lack of adherence to
Fire & Life safety codes, advise the local and state fire officials of your observations in writing and by all means take Mom or Dad to a facility that follows life safety practices. Gee, what other life saving issues do they have that you aren’t seeing?
Without any kind of electronic hold open (that wouldn’t be cheap) I can’t think of a solution the end user would like.
Invite Local and State Fire Marshalls for a visit, as well as any other pertinent regulatory agencies.
Listed power assist openers
As in life, most things are not black or white. I agree that life safety is the first priority. I also understand the issues residents may face. My 88 year old father is in a wonderful assisted living facility. The corridor doors all have closers. My dad (as well as most of the residents who are elderly) uses both a walker and wheelchair. He has a lot of difficulties going in and out of his room because he needs to fight against the door closer. (We young, able bodied folks don’t understand this). The staff has adjusted the closer to make it as easy as possible, but there is only so much they can adjust. Hats off to them. And by the way they will not remove a door closer.
Perhaps a delayed action closer would be better than a standard closer. Automatic operators would also be good, but think of the expense in a 300 unit facility.
I also wonder if the building codes need to take a look at some of the requirements for assisted living facilities and become a bit more lenient. My dad’s facility has nurse stations with 24 hour care and supervision. It is more like a hospital than an apartment building. In hospitals doors do not need to have a closer on corridor doors. Does it bother you when you go into a hospital and see your loved one lying in a bed and there is no closer on the door? ( Oh, buy the way, my dad has been in hospitals many a time lately and believe me when I say there is better supervision at his facility than at most hospitals.)
I may be in the same situation as my dad in 20 or so years. I hope they get this figured out by then.
It is amazing to me that someone could be this oblivious to this situation and have such an important job. Even though we are in the business, someone in his position should know better just based on experience and common sense. The legal ramifications are huge.
Smoke detectors in each room tied to magnetic holdbacks on the Fire Alarm system, perhaps.
I receive a request almost every week on my campus to remove closers. Most often the requestors are very understanding once I explain.
I don’t know why cost is always brought up in matters like this! There are cheaper power operators but can also be handled by any one of the fire alarm activated hold opens, like the SEM 7800 were you’re talking less then $300.
Save the stress about dealing with the facility and contact the AHJ with pictures and put the local AHJ and the State AHJ on legal notice. If there is a notice of how to contact CMS that oversees the facility make use of that as well. Forget about impressing the local staff with your concerns or knowledge.
Is it too late to find another place for Mom to live?
Write a letter to their management, with copies to their liability insurance carrier (if you can figure that out, to the local fire marshal, to any agencies involved in their accrediting, to your attorney, to mom’s attorney, and whoever else you can think of, pointing out the code violation and telling them that you are bringing this to their attention so that they can take immediate action. Also mention that in the event of any loss of life or injury that may result, you will take action. Enclose a copy of the Scottish inquiry transcript, and tell them that fires don’t respect national boundaries.
Sometimes I feel like I am suffering from “Violation Fatigue” I have complained to retailers and facility managers about code violations in the past and found that they generally don’t care and have no intention of acting. Now when I see an egregious violation I call the local Fire Department fire prevention office and file a report. In the last couple of years I have reported a movie theater with disabled exit devices and a tool retailer with expanding metal gates across their fire doors. The theater removed the devices, the tool store didn’t.
For those of us who are aware code violations are everywhere and unless we make it a full time job you can’t report em all.
Of course at my real job it’s a different matter and management (Who generally are quite supportive) do seem to think “Oh No! here he is again.”
For another example I will send Lori a picture of a door in a main ground floor corridor of a ten storey hospital locally. See what’s wrong?
This is more common than one might think.
I would love visiting the local “big city” AHJ who happened to be in the second floor. Always took the stairs and exiting the stair the door had the sign with directions to the review office and a wood chick in the door propping it open.
Always found it a bit hypocritical…
Lori and others
Unfortunately, it will take a loss of life or serious injury for building owners and managers to understand the need for the fire life and safety to be enforced correctly.
I feel that all the people in the industry understand the need but until the insurance companies that insure these type of building, as well as any building needing fire life safety, enforces those requirements as part of maintaining insurance coverage, people and businesses will just do as they please to save money.
I think more lobbying should be done to inform all the insurance companies of these requirements. They need to make sure that they are enforced by their policyholders or they could also be liable.
This would require effort on not only the building owner or manager but the local AHJ’s that always seem to not have a budget to cover this type of inspection and enforcement.
I guess the real question is, What is saving someone’s life worth?
Am I overstating anything here, can someone tell me that it is not all about the money.
Look at all the lockdown device schemers out to make money but not follow the code or those who don’t even know the code and are in a position to re-write the code just to look good in the press.
I am getting off track and wish that we could all just think about those who may not know or can not “lookout for themselfs” and make sure we help them by informing the correct AHJ and getting things like this handled before it is too late and something bad happens.
If I have upset anyone, think about your loved ones being in this building to weak to push open this fire door, so someone disables it even though that door working correctly may have saved theirs and many others live in a fire.
put magnetic hold-open’s tied into the fire alarm, else burn them to the fire marshal !!!
Cost should never be a factor to meet codes and to save lives. The proper closer for this application is an electromechanical swing free closer (example Norton 7240). You would never know there was a closer on the door until the fire alarm is activated or any power interruption to the control, at that time there is a cam that rotates and catches the arm to the closer and closes the door.
As a Local Fire Marshal I love getting complaints like this!!! I presently have a Memory Care facility being built in my town and I will be VERY aware of this issue. My take, if there is a door closure (or evidence there of) I tell them to repair or replace it. I have told maintenance personnel to adjust the closure so it closes the slowest it can while still maintaining the 5 lb force rule. So far, so good!!
Isn’t there a residential automatic closer solution that was mentioned a few weeks back on the close before you doze stuff?
A hinge replacement that closes the door when it hears an alarm? This seems like an easy solution if it’s compliant.
Maybe this one? https://idighardware.com/2019/07/now-available-lifedoor/
– Lori
bingo. Any reason that’s not compliant?
That product is not listed for use in closing a fire door, so it would be great for a non-rated bedroom door but not compliant for this fire-rated corridor door.
– Lori