The photos and video for today’s Wordless Wednesday post came from Zachary Bass, Deputy Fire Marshal with the Asheville NC Fire Marshal’s Office. Side note…it makes me SO HAPPY to know that AHJs visit iDigHardware! I field a lot of questions from fire marshals and building officials, and I get some of my ideas for code change proposals from them. 🙂
The door shown here is in a factory occupancy, where a “screen door”/gate was added to allow additional airflow while the exterior door was propped open and the gate maintained some level of security. Someone went to a lot of trouble and expense to fabricate and add this gate with panic hardware to the existing opening, right down to the castor to activate the exterior panic.
Unfortunately, this application created some code issues and the gate had to be removed. This is not uncommon – what seems like a great idea for convenience, security, or another reason turns out to create code issues.
What code issues do you see? And what are some other ways the needs of the facility could have been addressed? Please share your thoughts in the comments and I’ll revisit this post on Friday.
Here’s the video of the gate in operation:
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I have done a similar in a school kitchen except the “screen door” was access controlled from the outside and exitible from the inside, but the door swing was toward the room. All was AHJ approved. I recall that the AHJ did not consider the kitchen as an educational occupancy.
One operation???
Give them a B plus for effort!!
I think the concern will be the Reduce of Clear Opening and Increasing of Opening Force
Wow – that is super duper creative!
1) Additional force to open
2) Not fully open 90-degree
3) Reduced clear opening width
4) No 10-inch smooth bottom