I have to admit, I visit the local frozen yogurt joint so often that the owners ask me if I want "the usual." Hey - it's YOGURT...practically health food! I wasn't sure how I'd be able to make it through their winter break - about 2 months. I survived, but the closer on their entrance door didn't. It lost all of its fluid and started looking for fingers to lop off.
Just when I was wondering what I should post about tonight, I received this photo from Brendan Daley of SURV.
This Wordless Wednesday post can't be completely wordless (that's nothing new). These photos were sent to me by my friend and colleague, Kurt Roeper, who is traveling in China at the moment and reports that idighardware/ihatehardware is banned in China. Here's Kurt's note that came along with the photos:
It's tough enough to get anyone to pay attention to fire doors, but when a fire is a result of a "voodoo sex ceremony," there's little to no chance that anyone will take note of the role played by the propped-open fire door. In a 5-alarm fire in Brooklyn on February 20th, the door to the apartment where the fire originated was propped open in an attempt to dissipate the smoke. A window in the apartment was also opened, and heavy winds blew the fire out into the corridor. Other open doors in the corridor allowed the fire to spread and the 7-story building was destroyed.
The hotel in Las Vegas where we had our sales meeting had a Moroccan theme...I felt right at home since my husband is originally from Morocco and I love that style. The entrance doors to the ballroom had a pattern created by contrasting stain and oversized metal brads. They're labeled doors so I wonder whether the brads were considered plant-ons or whether they required any special testing or approval.
It's been a long time since I've posted one of these "quiz" photos but I want to see if you've been paying attention. This pair is at the Hoover Dam...right near the touchpad devices with the carpet modification. So, take a good look and leave a comment telling me what the problem is. I'll hold the correct answers to give everyone a couple days to think about it.
It's not every day a pirate tells you that you've been partying too hard. I wish that was my problem. I actually woke up with laryngitis on Wednesday, which really stinks since I was headed out of town for a meeting. I'm feeling much better after a visit to the convenience clinic, but I still can't talk very well. I'm sure some of my compañeros are happy about that.
We saw this building from the highway on our way to Red Rock Canyon and it wasn't hard to track it down and get the address. It was designed by Frank Gehry, and it's a brain and cognitive center for the Cleveland Clinic. I'm no expert on brain-related stuff, but I think if I was going to my brain doctor's office this building might freak me out a bit.
I'm in Las Vegas for a meeting that starts in a couple of days, and I'm pretty sure I could find enough cool and creative doors here to last me for a few months. Today we visited Red Rock Canyon (not a lot of doors there), the Hoover Dam (more doors there than you'd think), and a weirdly beautiful building by Frank Gehry. Since I'm blogging from an iPad which is not that easy, I'll post some quick photos and save the longer posts for when I get home next week.
Who says hardware can't be romantic?! In honor of Valentines Day, I present to you a tradition that began in the 1980s in Pécs, Hungary (or maybe in Italy depending on which version of the story you believe), and has spread to cities across the globe. It seems that sweethearts are attaching padlocks to bridges, statues, fences, and other structures to express their love. My pragmatic side wonders whether the structures can handle the extra weight of this quantity of padlocks, and whether people go back and take their padlock off when they break up, but since it's Valentines Day I'll just let you all feel the love.
The suit was in regard to the breach of security caused by wedging open the fire door, but I thought this was kind of interesting:
Judging from the photos, these doors may not have been code-compliant, but they were still able to hinder the spread of smoke and fire, at least to some extent. That does not mean that any old non-compliant door will be fine so we might as well stop worrying about them...one of the biggest issues with fire doors is finding them propped open with a wedge or a more creative device. If the doors are open, they're worthless.
Every so often, I wonder what I'm going to write about on this blog after I've covered all of the code requirements for doors and hardware. I mean, it's a very specific subject area so at some point I could run out of questions. And then something comes up that I've never looked into, and I stop wondering. There will always be more questions. If hardware was easy, it would be called "easyware," right? :-)
This post was printed in the February 2011 issue of Doors and Hardware
Today I went to a performance at a theater on a local college campus. The theater has 650 seats, so all of the required egress doors are supposed to have panic hardware. There are 4 pairs in the main lobby, all equipped with paddle devices which don't qualify as panic hardware. One of the requirements for panic hardware is that the actuating portion has to cover at least half the width of the door, and these paddles clearly do not.
I received a giant batch of photos today from a deputy fire marshal, and I could barely wait to post them. Whenever I get photos or comments from code officials I feel like the nerdy kid who got to sit with the cool kids at lunch one day. :-)
The other day I posted some photos of a fire door that had done its job and prevented a fire from spreading. Several of you emailed me about the photos, because they're SUCH a great illustration of what a fire door is for. It's easy to imagine what would have happened if it was propped open. Well, this morning I received even more photos of the same building (the Robert Moses Nature Center), from Bill Johnson of the Door Security and Safety Foundation, and this afternoon I received a link to a news article from Jerry Heppes of the Door & Hardware Institute. Thanks guys!!
If you're not familiar with Wordless Wednesday (WW), it's when bloggers post a photo which speaks for itself, without any words to gum up the experience. This post isn't technically wordless, but here's the first WW photo:
Sometimes I feel like a broken record. Like maybe people are sick of hearing me talk about fire and egress doors, how they protect us, and what happens when they are disabled or neglected. When I meet someone, I don't immediately launch into a discussion about doors because I'm pretty sure they'll think I'm a weirdo from the start and probably avoid me the next time.
Considering how many photos I took of doors during my Mommy's weekend at Foxwoods, it's a good thing I'm not a gambler. I wouldn't have had any time to check out the doors if I was stuck at the slots. I can't imagine what Las Vegas will be like...I hope I don't get arrested like this guy. Now go get a cup of coffee while these 22 photos load.
For exterior pairs I prefer to use rim panic devices with a removable mullion, but in some cases surface-mounted vertical rod devices are specified and supplied. When vertical rod devices are used on cross-corridor doors, I often specify them "Less Bottom Rod" (LBR), but on exterior doors I specify them with both top and bottom latches for increased security.
My inbox is overflowing with reader photos again. Thanks everyone!
The first time I ever saw a wicket door, it was for a post office project and I was working on the shop drawings. I haven't run into a whole lot of them since, but I saw a pair last weekend and risked the embarrassment of my friends to take some photos. The employee at the door said that I wasn't the first. :-)
Here's another interesting application that I saw at Foxwoods. These plastic covers were on all of the automatic operator actuators in the conference center.
As promised, I have some photos to post from my recent trip to Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Connecticut. I don't typically mention the locations of the photos I post, usually because I don't want to get in trouble for showing their code violations. Well, I'm not a gambler so I had plenty of time to look at doors, and I have no non-compliant door photos to post. I was pleasantly shocked. I saw two propped-open bathroom doors that had labels, but that's it. I don't even know why those particular doors were labeled, but in a facility with thousands of doors, thousands of building occupants (one website estimates over 40,000 visitors per DAY), and special security concerns, they're doing a great job with their fire and egress doors, as well as accessibility.
This post was printed in the January 2011 issue of Doors & Hardware
I've been doing some research for my FDAI presentation, looking for specific examples of how the inspection of fire doors and correction of deficiencies can have a direct impact on life safety as well as the protection of property. It's not very often that you see fire doors in the news, but these two recent examples showed up over the holidays:
I received lots of reader photos while I was going on and on about hotel doors. Here they are!
These are the last few miscellaneous photos from our vacation, but never fear...I'm headed off for a Moms' Weekend on Friday so maybe I'll have some good (G-rated) spa photos for next week. :-)
We're back from our vacation, but I have some more photos to share before I finish up this unplanned series on hotel doors. As I mentioned in an earlier post, our hotel was a series of buildings connected by propped open, non-latching, damaged doors which were originally fire rated (as indicated by the painted labels). Based on the condition of the doors, particularly the top hinges, I'm going to make the educated guess that these doors used to be operable, until the facility experienced trouble with the top hinges.
Hopefully you're not getting sick of my vacation photos because I've got a few more. This post has a special bonus at the end though - something I've NEVER seen before.
Today is the 107th anniversary of a tragedy at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, which shaped the early codes and led to the invention of the panic device. More than 600 people lost their lives in this fire, making it the deadliest theater fire and the deadliest single-building fire in United States history.
I don't stay in flea-bag motels - I really don't. That's why it amazes me that almost every hotel I stay in has extreme issues with their fire doors. I'm on a short vacation with my family, and as you can see from the graphic on the right, the resort consists of several connected 2-story buildings with a total of 256 guest rooms. The only rooms that are equipped with sprinklers are the rooms that have fireplaces - if I had known that I might have sprung for the upgrade.
I typically try to stick to more technical topics or photos of creative applications related to doors, but I'm on vacation so I'll be posting random photos and thoughts as I've done on other road trips (like these: Chip Falcon's Road Trip, Escape to Costa Rica, Maine/VT 2010). I don't usually write about one brand vs. another because I want this site to have universal appeal, but I just have to share my favorite Christmas gift of 2010 - a story written by my 9-year-old daughter (excuse the spelling and grammar - she learned to read/write in Spanish first so she's still perfecting the English). It cracked me up, and I know some of you will think it's funny too - whether you have IR hardware, or just "regular doors." :-)
The blog has hit the big time! American Express wants to give Idig Hardware a gold card! :-)
I'm working on a post for tomorrow that will solve another hardware mystery (regarding closers on classroom doors), but in the meantime, a couple of housekeeping issues...
I've talked about this before, but the question still comes up almost weekly - "What's the code-compliant solution when replacing a pair of doors in a 5'-wide opening?"
I'm in the mood to clean house (figuratively speaking only), so here's the latest collection of reader photos to hit my inbox. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to send them. More, please. :-)
This post was printed in the December 2010 issue of Doors and Hardware
Last spring, one of my friends sent me a link for a "den-cam," where Lily the black bear was hibernating and eventually gave birth to her cub, Hope. There were over 20,000 people watching the den-cam for the big event. I was not one of them (although someday I would love to have enough leisure time to watch a den-cam), but I did become Facebook friends with Lily the Black Bear and the North American Bear Center.
All the discussion about the unidentified piece of antique hardware reminded me to create a post about the invention of the door closer. Luckily, the story of the original LCN door closer was written down in approximately 1937, and I have reproduced it in this post. This story is near and dear to my heart, since the door closer was invented at Boston's Trinity Church, and I wrote the hardware spec for a large renovation there a few years back. The photo at right was taken about 10 years ago, and shows one of the original LCN closers at Trinity.
[I added an update at the bottom of this post!]
For several months I've been working on a short presentation for code officials about Fire & Egress door Assembly Inspection. I really HAVE been working on it, just not continuously. In my defense, it's really easy to get sidetracked when you get 100 emails per day. But there's one sure-fire way to get me focused, and that's to set a deadline. Not just a due date on my to-do list that I can change on a whim, but a real deadline with other people who will be waiting to see the results of my hard work.
