Remember last month when I mentioned that I might question the condition of a restaurant’s kitchen based on their doors and hardware?  Well, the same goes for hotels, and these Wordless Wednesday photos of my hotel’s fire doors from last week’s trip are a compelling example.

These photos are a great illustration of the concept of life cycle cost.  Buying less expensive hardware might initially seem like a good way to reduce the project budget, but hardware failures can lead to door openings that are not code compliant.  The closers on these fire doors have been replaced, and the fire doors no longer comply with NFPA 80.  Will they function as designed and tested if a fire occurs?  Who knows?

The closer on this door was replaced, the original fastener holes were not filled, and a chunk of the veneer was missing.

Very few of the doors with fire exit hardware closed and latched properly, and almost every lever handle was in the vertical position.

Even the wall stop repair had me wondering about how other maintenance of the facility was handled.

There are millions of existing fire doors that are not compliant with NFPA 80 or the manufacturers’ listings.  And they will likely remain that way until there is wider enforcement of the requirements for annual inspections of fire door assemblies, or until a fire occurs and the compliance issues are exposed.  We need to keep educating all types of stakeholders on why this is important…here is a recent article on how specifiers can help with fire door safety.

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