I’ve obviously been slacking because this video was posted a month ago. It’s a follow-up to a report about the flawed fire safety system at the Staples Center, including problems with their fire doors. Here’s a link, in case you missed it too.
Kudos to Robert Flores of Fire Door Consulting and Inspection Services for his work on this!
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Lori – This is a perfect example for all the thinking I do regarding the installation of fire rated door assemblies. What this boils down too is POOR WORKMANSHIP BASED ON INEXPERIENCE. YOU CANNOT TEACH PROPER INSTALLATION AT A JOB MEETING. IT IS AQUIRED BY TRAINING AND ON THE JOB EXPERIENCE. Currently the GC has the responsibility in his scope of work to supply and install. It is my experience the GC’s minimize the door package noting they have bigger fish to fry, but not really. Case in point, fire doors have a direct impact on the most important feature of the building, LIFE SAFETY. It is also my experience that GC’s will drive the value of the installation of Division 8 down by using the cheapest installers they can find. NO WONDER THEY DON’T WORK. How many times have you heard “it’s just a door”. More than once I’ve seen poor installation of doors of all sorts. I’m a proponent of having division 8 become a filed sub bid to the owner and only managed by the GC. Suppliers would now become contractors and they would be able to charge a realistic price for this type of work. It is a monumental task for our industry to provide certified installers to get the job done but it would provide peace of mind for the end users. I know there are alot of unanswered questions but if the industry started to look in this direction and do something about it I think it would have positive cost effective results. I think the manufacturers would support this idea and would and should be willing to get the ball rolling.