Nate Denver of Allegion sent me these Fixed-it Friday photos of some very cool sliders in a hard cider brewery he visited. Beautiful doors and hard cider…two of my favorite things. But being who I am, I wondered whether the doors were code-compliant, since the model codes allow sliding doors to be used in a means of egress when the occupant load is 10 people or less. What do you think? [Spoiler Alert: What I think is down below.]
I found this photo of the brewery’s tasting room on their website (gorgeous!). Let’s assume that all of the occupiable area of the room is shown in the photo and that there isn’t another room attached. Based on the seating, it looks like the expected occupant load is less than 20 people, but the calculated occupant load is probably less. This would be a Use Group B – Business, with an occupant load factor of 150 gross square feet per person. To have an calculated occupant load of 20 people, a business occupancy would have an area of 3,000 square feet – far larger than this room.
In addition, there is a second exit that would not typically be required for this space. The swinging door would easily accommodate the occupant load of this room. You might be wondering about the fact that the second exit is an inswinging door, but the door would not be required to swing in the direction of egress because of the low occupant load.
I’m obviously not the AHJ here, but this would not keep me up at night – especially if the sliders are kept open while the room is occupied. If there was a concern about the sliders they could be treated as a security grille which would be allowed by the IBC in this situation:
1010.1.4.5 Security grilles. In Groups B, F, M and S, horizontal sliding or vertical security grilles are permitted at the main exit and shall be openable from the inside without the use of a key or special knowledge or effort during periods that the space is occupied. The grilles shall remain secured in the full-open position during the period of occupancy by the general public. Where two or more means of egress are required, not more than one-half of the exits or exit access doorways shall be equipped with horizontal sliding or vertical security grilles.
Do you agree? Disagree? Who’s thirsty?? 😀
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I agree with you that it doesn’t look like a required exit. Whew!
Because if it were a required exit, I’d be concerned that it’s hard to see, like the camouflaged exits in memory-care facilities.
Thanks for the security grille interpretation – that’ll be useful!
Yes I agree, I love hard cider
Are those floor flush bolts on the slider exit doors? (head shake)
I have a concern about the left door leaf with the hand because when the doors are partially open, you have an accessibility issues. The hand is not cane detectable.
Lori, knowing the information you stated, I would completely agree with your assessment.
I love the sliding doors!
While I admire the artistic carpentry skills to make the sliding doors, I don’t agree in blocking the swinging doors, whether this application meets code or not. The giant “thumb”, extending into the inactive leaf door opening, could cause an injury if someone were to make contact.
What a beautiful door, thanks for posting the pics. I would have guessed assembly occupancy A2 because from the egress point of view I would expect the majority of the occupants will not be familiar with the property, and are there to eat and drink. It will be interesting to hear how other people classify this.
So awesome. Happy Friday.
Not enough info
Do not know how big that room is?
The sliding door looks like it goes into another room.
So this might be a small private room.
Besides the sliding door problem, the actual doors have manual bolts.
Plus the main door swings in.
So my take
Small room
Only needs one exit, that can swing in
Not sure if that is a dead bolt on the main door????
Get rid of exit sign over sliding door, and good to go
I totally agree with you. My only concern is are the door knobs on these door. I don’t think these doors are
ADA compliant. The pair of doors doesn’t have the 10” bottom rail ether.