I’m in the process of moving (with 3 teenagers and all of their worldly possessions), so bear with me! If you’ve sent me an email in the last few days, I’ll get back to you soon!
Erik Neumann of Allegion sent me today’s Wordless Wednesday photo and I swear, a little tear leaked out of my eye. This “exit” serves a church, which holds services in a section of a theater.
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Lori,
I love a good theater performance like the next guy but “Theater Folks” are the “bane of my existence”!! EVERY time I inspect a performance theater (and I have a number of them in town) I get out my new pen because I will be writing for a while!! I’ve had MANY discussions with multiple stage crews about the use of extension cords. Its like they default to their use whenever they want to. There could be another one on the floor right next to the other one but they have this one out so lets use this one!!! I walked into a theater once that decided to put their sound board in the middle of the audience. What did they use to power it? Two extension cords (one with the ground pin missing). I traced things down and discovered 27 things plugged into ONE extension cord!!! Multiple power strips daisy-chained one into another to make up the plugs for the 27. I had the same theater company disassemble the Emergency light on the wall close to the stage, why?? They needed the 12 volts of the battery to power a doorbell for the stage production!!! Needless to say that production opening night was delayed a few days until they cleaned things up. I can go ON and ON but I would use all the space!! I’m really never surprised anymore by anything in a performance theater!!
YIKES! That’s crazy!
– Lori
Lori,
I joined your blog posts the second I saw it and I have been spreading the news to every AHJ/Fire Marshal I know about how many FANTASTIC pictures your industry people post and discuss when it comes to doors and their hardware. PLEASE KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK so more people see just what the $%^& people do inside buildings to skirt the codes. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!! Kevin
Thanks Kevin!
I’m so glad the information is useful to you and to other AHJs! I never dreamed that I’d be able to help code officials with how they interpret the codes – years ago most of them weren’t too keen on taking advice from manufacturers. This week I’m working on editing the IBC Commentary along with other BHMA members, so I feel like our industry’s expertise is finally being leveraged!
– Lori
There’s tape over the closer arm too, so scary.
Why do churches insist they have a divine right to be unsafe? So many violations there, from slates falling from roofs, confessionals in egress corridors, you name it.
I used to be the technology coordinator for a high school. The drama students would pry open locked breaker panel doors to turn off the lit exit signs.
Lori,
Much like people come to us as the subject matter experts when it comes to fire safety, we in return would be stupid not to come to you guys as experts on fire doors and their respective hardware and how the codes apply. The first AHJ who says they “know it all” is only hurting themselves. THANK YOU!! I look forward to your posts every week!!!
At least the pathway to the door is (reasonably) clear. (Trying to find a positive.) I wonder if the tape that is stuck to the upper right side of the frame was covering the fire alarm pull?
If it is in a theater, you can’t expect them to carry on with the light from the exit sign lighting up the whole area!
It needs to be dark.
A LONG time ago I was the technical director for a small theatre. Our space was flexible, and included a couple of magnetic battery powered illuminated exit signs, and some black out magnets for the hard wired exit signs.
Before you panic– when the space was designed, it included (4) points of egress, with only (2) required for any particular reconfiguration of the space. Depending on how the audience seating and scenery were laid out, the egress plan by the main entry was swapped out with an egress plan approved by the AHJ. If a door needed to be blocked, (only once it was functionally inaccessible to the public), it got its exit sign masked, and a temporary exit sign directed folks to the appropriate exit. The battery signs were (in theory) able to run for 72 hours and were swapped daily when they were up. The temp signs were also used to replace wayfinding exit signs that might be covered by scenery, while still making it very clear where to go.
We had a fire inspection for every set layout, and the inspector usually got a copy of the floor plan and egress weeks before inspection (unless it was something they’d previously seen). That said, one of the inspectors there insisted on a live flame test of almost every set – in situ. Rather than taking a test swatch prepared with the scenery and holding an appropriate flame to it outside, this yahoo had to be convinced every show to not take his pocket torch lighter to the scenery on the stage. He tried to set the curtains on fire repeatedly. They had up to date manufacturer installed dip tags stating they were appropriately retardant.
That said, I pretty routinely had to discuss appropriate safety measures with folks renting the space. On the plus side, if they didn’t listen to me, I had an insane inspector I could request do the inspection and guarantee that they’d fail because they had a UL listed light fixture on the set or some other imaginary problem. …. The stories I’ve got about that guy are far worse than anything any of the fools I had to correct ever tried.
I love to hear about that kind of collaboration with the AHJ!
– Lori
Ah, the old “gaffer tape over the exit sign” trick. Brilliant!