I’ve been on the lookout for a pair of doors with automatic flush bolts and a coordinator that was installed, adjusted, and functioning properly, and I finally found one last week at UTK. This is another application that is difficult to explain with photos (here’s one from last week), so here’s a video showing how a coordinator works:
Can you believe the kid on the left is the same one that helped me choose 5 winners back in 2011? She also got us locked in our hotel room and caused an iDigHardware traffic spike when she had a thyroidectomy. The kid on the right wrote the infamous 3 Bears story back in 2010. Time flies!
You can find more information about flush bolts and coordinators in this Decoded article, this whiteboard animation video, and this recent blog post.
Here are some photos of the opening in the video:
Pull side:
Push side:
Bar-type coordinator:
On the left is the active leaf being held open by the coordinator, and on the right is the inactive leaf approaching the trigger which will release the active leaf and allow it to close:
This is a dust-proof strike – the bottom flush bolt projects into it when both leaves of the pair are closed, but when the doors are open it is a flush plate that helps keep the strike from filling with debris:
Any questions?
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No strike for the flushbolt latch to ride on the inacive door one of my pet peeves in life. 99% of contractors throw it away.
At least it works. Too many openings do not sequence properly or get jammed or the active leaf doesn’t close with enough force to project the auto-bolts.
I notice the wear plates for both the coordinator and the auto-bolts are missing. When I would question this during a walk-thru, the “canned” answer I would get from the contractor was, “They weren’t in the box”.
By pre-installing hardware in our shop, we drastically reduced these incidences of missing items.
Great job, hardware Mom!
No rub plate?
Great video.
Have not seen that type in a long time.
Now you have a production crew????
They work cheap! 🙂
– Lori
These doors have no astragal, so wouldn’t an open back strike do the same thing with less hardware to break?
Hi Lee –
Because of the automatic flush bolts you would still need the coordinator. The open back strike is most commonly used when there is a mortise panic and a vertical rod panic.
– Lori
The closers are also installed backwards, the cylinder should face the latch/strike edge of the doors.
I rarely see these installed correctly or working properly. The rub plates that protect the door from the coordinator and the flush bolts are missing which would fail the doors on an inspection by be for not installing all factory required hardware, plus they will eat into the veneer over time and void the door rating as well. It is even worse with the parallel arm closers when they forget the additional mounting plates and screw straight into the coordinator.
I noticed the rub plates were missing on the doors but the opening operating properly with a coordinator is good to see