Jon Dudley of Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies sent me these photos of a school in West Virginia, where apparently this was not a mistake - it's the way the school wanted them. For the life of me I can't figure out why. Any ideas?
I'd love to know who did this, so I can give them a good talking-to (maybe they'll read this and track me down like the semi-concealed closer installer).
AccessibilityOnline's next webinar is on June 2nd from 2:30 - 4:00 Eastern Time, and the topic is Accessible Doors & Maneuvering Clearance. If you can't attend the webinar, there should be an archive recording available sometime after the 2nd.
Scott Foley of JC Ryan EBCO sent me this photo he took in Rome and wondered what the decorative metal components in the corners are. Anybody know? What's their purpose and what are they called?
Can you believe I'm STILL attending town meeting 3 nights per week for 3 hours each? This was our 10th night and it will take a few more to get through all of our warrant articles. I'm sorry if I've been less productive than usual - I'm spending my blogging hours doing my civic duty. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves. :-)
How many more fires is it going to take before people understand that closed and latched doors save lives, code-compliant fire doors are self-closing and self-latching, and annual fire door inspections will make sure they stay that way?
I'm still spending my Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday nights at town meeting, so I REALLY appreciate all of the great photos that have been sent in lately.
I had a great time at the New York DHI Chapter meeting tonight! I was so impressed with the attendance, the food, and the engagement at their chapter meeting, and they are very excited about the upcoming DHI conference in NYC in October. Public speaking isn't my favorite thing to do, but they were a fabulous audience for my presentation on social media and professional networking, which made it easy for me.
This post was printed in the May 2011 issue of Doors and Hardware
I'm getting ready to head to NYC to do a presentation for the DHI chapter there, so here are some quick photos of a cross-corridor fire-rated pair sent in by Andy Olson of Reliable Glass and Door. There has to be some sort of rule against this.
Feeling the Heat: Fire Doors - Building.co.uk
I saw both of these doors today, in two different facilities. Yes, they are both fire rated. One is a cross-corridor pair and one is a stair door.
I was recently elected as a town meeting member for my town (a pretty large town - 68,000 people), and tonight I attended my first-ever town meeting. It was pretty interesting to see government in action, but I also found time to hunt down some old doors for you all.
On our way home we had great weather while we were in the DC area, so we decided to stop at the zoo and let the kids get some of the crazies out. The lions were my favorite...a pride of 2 lionesses, 1 lion, and 7 cubs - just gorgeous. I could have watched them all day. At one point a lioness went to the door and I thought maybe she could smell food or hear someone making preparations. Apparently big cats can open doors, because the knob had a shield around it. The door in the tiger exhibit was the same, except that the tigers must be more impatient because instead of waiting and watching they're trying to dig their way in (see below).
Another blogger wrote about iDigHardware! Check it out!
I guess the blog's subscriber system decided to go on vacation too, and I just realized that you weren't receiving notification emails! There are a couple of posts waiting for you, and I'd also like to announce the winners of the "A Penny for Your Thoughts" contest!
We're still on vacation and saw almost no doors today, but we did meet our neighbor. Creepy!
I've been looking at this building on paper for at least 5 years, and although there were days when I wished for the fun to end, I knew it was going to be something special.
I wrote this post on Saturday but because of technical difficulties I couldn't get it uploaded until now. Sorry!
Here's the second batch of reader photos. My emailbox is empty now. Not.
I've received lots of reader photos lately...thank you, and keep 'em coming!
Anyone who knows me personally, knows that I'm a helper. I like to help. I'm always organizing collection efforts for one thing or another, donating items for our local schools, pitching in when I can. There are so many people in need, and if we all help a little, the world will be a better place for everyone.
A penny won't get you too far these days...I have to bribe my kids with at least a dollar to get them to do anything. So I'm going to up the ante. I'm offering a chance to win 10,000 PENNIES!
This post was printed in the April 2011 issue of Doors & Hardware
I got this text message this morning, and alas, I'm not at the ISC West show in Las Vegas. If you're not at the show either, you can still visit the Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies booth there.
Since I started this blog I've often thought how great it would be if JQP (John Q Public) knew the basic requirements of fire and egress doors. What if everyone who saw a locked egress door or a propped-open fire door had a way to change the situation? Imagine the effect this could have on life safety! In my imaginary world, I think of these informed people as door minions, except instead of serving an evil SuperVillian, they're helping to save the world. OK, it might be a stretch, but I saw this article the other day, giving me hope that there ARE door minions out there...
I love photography and I've always wanted to learn how to use all the fancy buttons and dials on my camera. My "big" camera (a Canon T1i) takes great photos but I knew it could do so much more if I only knew what all those settings meant. Well, today I finally took a class. Yeah! It was an hour of buttons and dials followed by a field trip around the neighborhood looking for interesting subjects. It wasn't a great area for interesting doors but I found a few...and you can expect a LOT more photo-safari posts now that I've graduated from DSLR-1. Just wait until DSLR-2!
I know there have been a lot of posts this week and hopefully my subscribers aren't getting sick of the email notifications, but I've got a couple of really important things to post so bear with me. I can take next week off if you're sick of me. :-)
I was reading an article about blogging in Inc. the other day, and one paragraph really resonated with me:
Thank goodness it's Wordless Wednesday because I have no words for these photos. Well, no words other than - deadbolts aren't allowed on double-egress doors, and UL listed hardware can't be modified. Believe it or not, these exit devices actually work (as long as the deadbolt isn't engaged!).
When I lived in a condominium complex in the mid-90's, I don't think I gave much thought to fire safety. I remember hearing the fire alarm in the middle of the night and going out to my balcony to see if I could smell smoke. If not, it must be a false alarm. That seems CRAZY to me now. Luckily, I lived in a fairly safe building. The stair doors and the cross-corridor doors were never propped open. The unit entry doors had spring hinges so they didn't close as reliably as if they'd had closers, but thankfully we never had a fire while I lived there. Someday when I'm helping my oldest daughter look for her first apartment, you can bet that I won't be as lax about fire safety. I may just zip her up in a flame resistant jumpsuit before I send her off to college. :-)
Last week I posted photos of some very old Von Duprin exit devices which were originally installed on the entrance doors to the Shatford Centre in Penticton, British Columbia. I later communicated with the millworker, Plexus Woodworks, who built the new doors, and several people from the Shatford Centre, as well as other blog readers who chimed in with questions and comments. If you know someone who is knowledgeable about antique hardware, please forward this post to them to see what else we can learn about this hardware.
The 2010 Fire Code of New York State requires fire doors to be maintained in accordance with NFPA 80, and references the 2007 edition of that standard (Chapter 45 - Referenced Standards). The 2007 edition of NFPA 80 requires fire door assemblies to be inspected annually as part of the maintenance requirements, so by referencing NFPA 80-2007 for maintenance of fire doors, an annual inspection of these assemblies is required.
The 2010 California Fire Code requires fire doors to be maintained in accordance with NFPA 80 and smoke doors to be maintained in accordance with NFPA 105. The code references the 2007 editions of NFPA 80 and NFPA 105 (Chapter 47 - Referenced Standards). The 2007 editions of these standards require the door assemblies to be inspected annually as part of the maintenance requirements, so by referencing NFPA 80-2007 and NFPA 105-2007 for maintenance of fire doors and smoke doors, an annual inspection of these assemblies is required.
In response to my request for a list of FAQs, my colleague and pal Kurt Roeper sent this suggestion. It's definitely a frequently asked question, but the tricky part is coming up with the answer. I'm a big fan of the old adage, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." That's how I handle all the big tasks I'm faced with, and I think it will work for this one as well.
I don't ask for much, right? But I need a little help. I've been posting on this blog for over 2 years and there are more than 400 posts. I know it can sometimes be hard to find the specific post or topic you're looking for. You can search by typing something into the search box, but when I just typed "panic hardware," I got a list of 49 posts that mentioned that term. You can also go to the index and get a list of all the posts for any given category, but those lists can be pretty long too. As an example, the Fire Door category currently has 91 posts.
I received an article today about a fire at the Evelyn Gardens apartment complex in Albany, California, which resulted in $400,000 in damage and one fatality. In the article, Fire Chief Marc McGinn is quoted several times in regard to apartment entry doors. Here's an excerpt:
Since we seem to be on an antique doors and hardware run, I thought you'd like to see these oldies but goodies. They were spotted at the Shatford Centre in Penticton, British Columbia. The building was recently renovated and the main entrance doors and hardware were replaced, and the process was chronicled in detail on www.shatfordcentre.com (just search for "doors"). I got in touch with the project manager for the renovation to make sure they didn't throw the hardware away, and she said, "we consider these archival pieces of the building’s history and would never throw them out." She also said that some of the existing panic devices that were not replaced during the renovation are still functioning!
I visited my favorite law school today, and the signs on this door caught my eye. They're not taking any chances.
I know some of you will remember "Chip Falcon's Road Trip" from a couple of years ago. For those of you who weren't readers of this blog back then...I usually go on a road trip with my family every summer. In the summer of 2009, I had to take a Falcon 25 series panic device on the road trip so I could show it to a specwriter who had moved to South Carolina. Since I was dragging the panic device (nicknamed Chip Falcon) around, I wrote a series of posts about the various places that we visited on our road trip and wrote about some of the features of the 24/25 series which had just been introduced.
For my subscribers on the west coast...check out the rise of the Supermoon tonight! The rest of you can enjoy the beautiful full moon too, but moonrise in Boston was at 7:16. It was amazing! Yes, I do occasionally take photos of something besides doors.
Eyal Bedrik of Entry Systems Ltd. sent me a plethora of photos recently. I think he sent his entire "Creative Closers of Israel" file. :-)
