This is the first time I’ve ever received a Fixed-it Friday STORY…not just one FF photo, but 13 photos to help illustrate what is going on with this building’s exits.  And Logan Piburn (an architect) narrated the entire thing, so here is his guest blog post for your FF enjoyment…

~~~

The building is a maintenance shop for a rural utility company. It houses mostly office space and a parts warehouse. The doors in these photos are all part of the warehouse area. Apparently the maintenance folks used to have a system where their technicians came up to a dutch door/service counter to request parts and materials. Clearly, that wasn’t working for them:

“Do not yell at door” made me LOL on site. I just couldn’t keep up the professional facade. I really want to know what the top line was before they whited it out. There were also obviously some *ahem* impatient people who just couldn’t wait to be helped. Naturally, some sophisticated hardware solutions were needed in order to prevent break-ins:

Pretty good stuff right? Well, it gets better. Like I said this situation was clearly not working out for the department. So they decided to re-route everyone around the other side of the building and completely close off this vestibule/access area. The next photos are taken looking out from the dutch door:

The blue tape on that last photo was ripped so I couldn’t read the whole thing. The gist of it is, “Put metal shim in then lift up to open.”

Exterior of the double door:

And the exterior of the blocked single door…

Ok so at this point, all kinds of alarm bells are ringing right? Violations of means of egress left and right. However, because this is a relatively small warehouse they actually only need one MOE. Sure, they need to get rid of the silly dutch door so you can’t get locked into the closed-off vestibule but that isn’t too big of a fix. Then I was shown the only other way to get in and out of the warehouse:

Yep. Their service counter is rigged up on top of what looks like a furniture dolly and swings in. Yes, this is the only way out. And yes, that is a big’ol  improvised flush bolt on the side of it. Not that it would prevent anyone from just hopping the counter.  The good news is that the owner knows the building has some problems and is already planning on a replacement facility. Here’s hoping they get that done soon.

You need to login or register to bookmark/favorite this content.