Two paragraphs were added in the 2013 edition of NFPA 80 to address continuous hinges used on fire doors. I've seen these sections many times and never noticed a potential problem, until it came up twice in the last couple of weeks...
Today's Wordless Wednesday photo was sent by Nolan Thrope of Allegion...this is a cross-corridor fire door in a school. The closer is missing as well as the obvious hinge problem. Sadly, this type of neglect is not uncommon. :(
Austin Baumann of Central Indiana Hardware sent me this photo of the emergency exit in a mirror maze. This would be considered a special amusement building - I wrote about some of the requirements for those occupancies here. I have often seen means of egress modifications...
One more whiteboard animation in the latest series...this time on hinges!
When I stopped for a snack yesterday, I didn't expect to be called into service on a defective door that was threatening to crush someone while simultaneously preventing egress. The fun never stops...
A question hit my inbox a few weeks ago that I had never considered before: Does a door with spring hinges require the same maneuvering clearance as a door with a door closer?
I have not yet seen this product (the DoorSaver II) in use, but I've definitely seen distributors enlarging the hole in a residential hinge pin stop in order to use it on a commercial hinge. This looks like an interesting idea...
As most of you know, I love to see creativity and innovation within the door and hardware industry, especially if it helps to increase fire prevention and life safety. I received a video this morning, introducing a product that has been developed by two retired FDNY firefighters. It is a spring hinge with a fusible link, so in normal operation it acts as a typical hinge but when exposed to heat it closes the door...
Check out this Fixed-it Friday photo of a creative hinge modification, sent in by Andy Armstrong of BR Johnson. At least it doesn't appear to be a fire door...
These photos were sent in by Eyal Bedrik of Entry Systems Ltd., after his recent trip to the US from Israel. The photos were taken at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. The home was built between 1902 and 1905, and is 35,000 square feet with 50 rooms!
What is your preferred method for hanging an aluminum storefront door, and why? What are the considerations - aesthetics, function, durability...others?...
These are 3-hour fire doors which divide the modern wing of the museum from the older wings. This is an award-winning museum which houses more than 300,000 works of art in its priceless collection. The chance of a fire may seem unlikely, but if a fire occurs, the wedged-open fire doors will not protect the rest of the museum...
From Stephen Richardson and Joe Beeman of Allegion, here's a hinge modification they saw recently. Would you consider this acceptable? Why / why not?
Before anyone says, "Why didn't you stop and see me??", we were only in Savannah for a quick lunch break. :)
A hodge-podge of the doors I saw while I was in Nashville for CONSTRUCT last week...
Thank you to everyone who has sent me photos of doors they've seen in their travels (or while laying on the couch). Kelly Chimilar from Allmar Inc. noticed these doors with an obvious egress problem while watching Thursday Night Football. If you don't know what the problem is, I will hold a special online study session for you after work tonight. ;)
I answer A LOT of questions every day, and I love doing it. I'm so glad to be able to provide this resource for our staff and customers, and anyone else who comes across my site. But sometimes I get questions that I don't have a good answer for, and that's where you come in. Please leave a comment if you have any insight on ANY of these questions...
Here are some more photos from my weekend in NYC...these are all about taking a closer look.
This photo of a hospital corridor door was sent by Hyun Myung Kang. I'm pretty sure this installation doesn't comply with NFPA 80.
Question: I have a hollow metal fire door that is sagging due to failure of the top hinge reinforcement. Is it acceptable to remove the butt hinges and install a continuous hinge on the existing door and frame?
I'd like to tell you where I got these photos but then I'd have to kill you and that would be bad for business. :D
Today is the 3rd anniversary of iDigHardware (aka iHateHardware)! WOOHOOOO!!!
I coincidentally received these two sets of photos on the same day. Who knew there was such cool hardware in Indiana??
It warms my heart when someone says, "I saw this door and I thought of you." :-) That's what Angie Sutton of Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies wrote when she sent me this photo of an old vault door on a storage room at the county courthouse:
Paul Goldense of Goldense Building Products showed me this pair of fire-rated doors last week. He mentioned that the architect had to change the arch to make it a "flatter" curve because of the rating, and that they had to use continuous hinges instead of butt hinges. Who can tell me why?
This afternoon I had an appointment for acupuncture, and as I was drifting off into a needle-induced temporary coma (if you haven't tried it, you should!) I was thinking about what I should post for Friday. Then I thought about how it seemed like such a short time between my Wordless Wednesday post and planning for Friday's post, and in a sudden epiphany I realized that I had posted the WW post today! I DO know what day it is, and I did write the WW post on Wednesday, but I must have had a senior moment. I went back and changed the date so nobody who visits that post in the future will realize that I messed up. To all of the loyal readers out there, THANK YOU for not saying, "You dummy, it's Thirsty Thursday not Wordless Wednesday!" :-)
We only spent a brief segment of our road trip in Lexington, but it was long enough to spot a couple of doors of interest. Our hotel was originally a single family residence and it's on the Register of Historic Places. We checked in pretty late at night but I immediately noticed the mess they had made of the lock on their front door. Creative, yes...purty, no.
Is it me, or are those some really big butts on pretty small doors? This post should bring in some interesting stats...like the guy who Googled "naked ladies with no cover-ups" and was sent to my blog post on naked closers with snap-on covers. :-)
I've been in the door and hardware business for a long time - almost 25 years. While I'm still passionate about the products, the industry, and our customers, there are some days when I'm not quite as excited as I once was. It's kind of like the old, "I love you but I'm not in love with you," line. I'm sure you can relate...we all have those days.
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 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 was reading an article about blogging in Inc. the other day, and one paragraph really resonated with me:
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.
Here's another door from the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport, Massachusetts. It's actually a curved door from the existing building attached to a new door. Because of the thickness of the two doors, wide throw hinges were used. Wide throw hinges are typically used when more clearance is required behind the door when open 180 degrees, not to be confused with swing clear hinges, which move the door out of the opening when open to 90 degrees (see below for comparison).
Last night's CSI meeting was a tour of the recently-completed Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport, Massachusetts. It was kind of a hike especially with the threat of traffic problems, but I thought I might be able to get some good door pictures.
I haven't thought much about these since I was in DHI school (a really long time ago), but today I saw two types of paumelle hinges along with some olive knuckle hinges in the same facility. Beautiful hinges, but a very tough door and frame prep.
After my post about the Parkside West fire, a couple of people have asked me what I have against spring hinges. I'm not one to discriminate against hardware of any function, style, or finish, but I also like things to do what they're supposed to do. If I could get my kids to act more like cast iron door closers, I'd be a happy camper. I'm not picking on spring hinges here - Ives makes spring hinges and is also one of the brands that keeps a roof over my head. They just need to be used for the right applications.
I was walking down the street the other day, and I noticed that all of the entrance doors on the building I was passing had A LOT of intermediate pivots. I didn't have much time to investigate, but I took a picture in case I decided to do a blog post about it someday. Well, someday is today because I just got an email from one of our specwriters about how to determine the required quantity of intermediate pivots.
A couple of weeks ago, someone asked me why hinges traditionally come in pairs. I asked two of my favorite hinge experts - Matt Bouchard and Bob Jutzi, and they both gave me a variation of the same answer. In the 17th and 18th centuries there were 2 hinges on a door, so they were sold in pairs because you'd never use just one. In the early 1950's it was determined that a 3rd hinge would supply additional support and that became the standard. Our industry called that "a pair and a half" of hinges. There's some great hinge history at www.hardwaresource.com in case there's other hinge trivia you've been wondering about.
I recently received this photo from an architect who wanted to use the Von Duprin Inpact devices pictured here on another museum I'm working on. I've used these several times when an architect wanted the panic device powder coated a similar color to the door. As with LCN closers, Von Duprin panic hardware can be powder coated in a multitude of colors (refer to the Tiger Drylac brochure called RAL Exterior/Interior).
What you're looking at is an existing fire rated frame with a new door that I saw recently during a fire door inspection. Most of the other doors that I inspected that day had steel hinge fillers to fill the existing hinge preps before the continuous hinges were installed. So why were a half-dozen or so filled with expandable foam insulation? Hmm...it's a mystery.
