I don’t usually ask for help two days in a row, but there were so many great comments on yesterday’s post about thermal break frames and a new question has come up today. Today’s project is a servery and kitchen for a corporate campus. The end user has asked for hardware that is able to withstand airborne flour and grease. Apparently they have had problems in the past and the original hardware failed fairly quickly and was replaced with something that was appropriate for a kitchen setting that has floating particulates and grease.
On past kitchen projects, I addressed the potential for frequent cleaning by specifying stainless steel hardware. But floating particulates?
WWYD?
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Spec a large sign for the entrance door that reads, “Turn on the hood.”
Time to start making your hardware with a Titanium finish?
Seriously, this makes no sense. The only particulates would be organic. I’ve designed literally hundreds of restaurant installations and have never experienced failure due to these claims and I spec 26d chrome hardware regularly. The fact that the hardware typically gets the crap beat out of it well before it’s useful life is probably a bigger problem.
The solution is specifying stainless steel hardware and applying silicone sealant to all cracks, crevices, nooks, crannies and holes on both the door and frame. This includes locks, hinges, screws and anything that would allow particulates in. Avoid keyed locks. Use sensor touch pads and maglocks if security is an issue.
There are a plethora of hardware items that could be effected, however the culprit is most likely the hinges or the closer. Stainless steel hardware is the most appropriate for a Servery/kitchen application, however typically the servery doors or the kitchen doors are labeled doors and therefore hinges need to be plated steel. Particulates, dust and flower are hinge restraints. Perhaps a continuous stainless steel hinge would be appropriate. McKInney and Pemko have rated pin and barrel type stainless continuous hinges. Pemko also has rated aluminum geared continuous hinges. As for the closer – only the metal cover could be stainless steel. Did the end user stipulate what hardware failed?
David
First point to address here is whether they have adequate air cleaning. The floating particulates are rough on everything — including the staffs’ lungs.
I don’t recall that we have ever had to do anything fancy… just stainless steel hardware as much as possible. Never had a complaint or a problem. Just my uneducated opinion… this sounds more like a ventilation issue than a hardware issue.
I would hazard a guess it is grease laden vapors from the cooking and flour coming off of clothes they brush off
I think they should look at the hood filters. Back in my after school fast food job if you forgot to clean the hood filters (which clog up extremely fast under a fryer or grill) you would have a grease haze all around. No sense in making everything tougher if you can follow the problem back to the source and fix it there. They are easy to overlook as they become a huge pain to clean. There were times I had to use a putty knife to remove the solidified grease from the hood filters.
They must be Red Sox fans, hitting a walk off homer before dessert.