First I want to say that the retail store shown in today’s Fixed-it Friday photo is one of my very favorite stores. It’s a great company and I love their products and the friendly service their employees provide.
When I saw this secondary exit in one of their stores recently, I noticed the way they had marked certain doors as “NOT AN EXIT”, with the exit door clearly marked and equipped with code-compliant hardware. Ok…the boxes and cart probably shouldn’t be there, but I’ll give them an E for effort, especially since the extra signs would not typically be required by the model codes.
What do you think? Are the “NOT AN EXIT” signs a nice-to-have or a need-to-have? If you were an AHJ…WWYD?
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If the true exit is properly marked and fairly easy to distinguish, no extra signs needed.
I know hotels can be a little tricky at times.
Feliz Navidad,, Wherever you will be in the World
When I was the Head locksmith at Columbia University, we were very big on code compliance.
We had signs made like this for all doors that could be confused for egress doors especially communicating stairwells.
Everyone assumes stairwells are for egress, but they are not! If a stairwell just goes from floor to floor with no means of outside egress or leads directly to outside, it should not have an exit sign. Many of our older buildings had exit signs on stairwell doors that did not go to the lobby or went to mezzanines, so we removed them and replaced them with NOT AN EXIT sign. Signs were 10″W x 7″H with 2-1/2″ lettering. None of the doors were rated and none of them latched.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Sebastian!
– Lori