“One door had the worst panic bar mountings I’ve ever seen in my life.” door contacts preventing both doors from fully closing, item seven is an issue and is therefore a code violation, specifically: 5.2.3.7 Closing Devices 5.2.3.7.1 All fire doors, fire shutters, and fire window assemblies shall be inspected and tested to check for proper operation and full closure. Yes, the doors latch, but do they fully close? No, there is a consistent ½” gap along the length of the latch side of each door (Figure 4). This is due to the maglock and door contacts. Even the panic bar’s strike, compensating for this gap, pre- vents the doors from fully closing against the frame. Furthermore, Figure 5 shows one of the doors from within the stairwell. As is the case with the other door, the signage won’t meet the requirements of item 13, 30 KEYNOTES OCTOBER 2015 which defer to 4.1.4. Of all requirements of 4.1.4, 4.1.1.4 is the most applicable here because it requires the following: 4.1.4.1 The total area of all attached signs shall not exceed 5 percent of the area of the face of the fire door to which they are attached. The current signage is definitely more than 5 percent; it will need to be removed and replaced with code-compliant signage. The Fix Is In The fix was the same for both doors, as they were essentially identical. I had to first remove the existing maglock, all as- sociated wire and conduit, the REX but- ton and its junction box, and repair the existing holes (Item two of 5.2.3.5.2). Remember my article “Fixing a Swiss Cheese Problem,” about repairing a frame in accordance to NFPA 80 (2013) 5.5.7? That frame wasn’t fire-rated; this one is, so the same repair methods had to be used. One door had the worst panic bar mountings I’ve ever seen in my life (Fig- ure 6); it was screwed at both ends, no missing screws or empty screw holes or defective hardware, it was installed like that. That had to be fixed (Figure 7). When all was said and done, the stair- well doors were code-compliant: penetra- tions were filled in accordance to NFPA 80 requirements; both allow for one op- eration to unlatch the door in accordance to the IBC/IFC; both are self-latching, both fully close; the signage no longer ex- ceeds the 5% area of the face of the door, etc. Basically, we’re good to go and ready to proceed with correcting the audible alarm issue. I went with a Detex EAW500 (Figure 8) on each door. Why? It mounts to the door and not frame. Each door swings out and into the courtyard which means the speaker for the Detex unit will sweep the entire courtyard and be focused to- wards the front desk when opened, if only temporarily. If the door is only opened partially and closed, the audible signal will continue until Public Safety comes to investigate. And, let’s be honest: to the unsuspecting person, it’s an intimidat- ing alarm. Also, considering that there’s a camera within each stairwell, it’s very easy to narrow down the time of the vio- lation and, hopefully, find the offender. The EAW500 is also weatherized in the event it’s opened while raining. WWW.ALOA.ORG
