Marc Zolner of Allegion sent me today’s Fixed-it Friday photo, of some crossbar panics secured with a cable. The doors in the photo are one of five pairs of doors serving the main entrance of a theater in Indiana, which was built in 1921 and has an occupant load of more than 1,200 people.
Marc asked what the codes say about having one pair locked with a cable, while all of the other pairs were available for egress – and this is a great question! I would guess that the available main entrance doors plus any other egress doors in the building would be sufficient for the occupant load (here’s how to calculate that).
So maybe these doors aren’t “required” for egress, BUT the Indiana Fire Code is based on the International Fire Code (IFC). And the requirements of the IFC apply to doors that are provided for egress purposes in addition to the quantity of doors that are required to accommodate the occupant load. The IFC states: Doors, gates and turnstiles provided for egress purposes in numbers greater than required by this code shall comply with the requirements of this section.
In my opinion, this locking method would not be compliant with the I-Codes – you can read all about it in this Decoded article. What do you think??
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Good answer !!!!!
I concur
Just like I hate going to a grocery store at night and one side main entrance is locked and blocked.
In a panic situation with a building full of smoke, it would be very easy to get trapped against that pair of doors because you couldn’t see the cable on the devices. I vote no!
I had an issue with an exit device that had been disabled because even though the door wasn’t required to be a fire exit for occupancy (it was a former assembly space that had been repurposed for storage) our LAHJ said that the visual appearance of a panic bar created a reasonable expectation that it was a fire exit (despite having no signage to that effect.) So he had me remove the panic bar entirely, secure the door with a deadbolt, and post a NO EXIT sign.
All doors must be available at marked exits.
As described to me, you can’t determine which set of doors people use to exit in an emergency. (It’s called panic hardware for a reason.)
If it looks like a duck it should act like a duck!