This has driven me up a wall for years. Entrances to buildings are, as often as not, made up of one or more sets of double doors, yet more often than not one of the two doors is locked. There’s a move theatre in Manhattan with 3 sets of these doors I’ve been to where on more than one occasion 4 or even 5 of the 6 doors won’t open. I’ve always assumed this was pure and simple proof of man’s inhumanity toward man: entering or exiting a building gives you a 50/50 chance of looking like an idiot, and somewhere somebody’s having a good laugh. But that must just be a self esteem problem I should take up seperately. I read Cecil’s recent column on revolving doors serving as a means to pinpoint roudy color-outside-the-lines types and was wondering if this is somehow related.
In the times I worked in retail, I was the only one that seemed able to open the 2nd door. There is a lever that needs to be pulled at the top & bottom of the door to unlock it. Most folks are too lazy to do this, and simply turn the key, opening the door with the lock attached to it.
It also drives me NUTS, but as the folks that generally work retail (which I did, during my school years, when flex hours were more important than job satisfaction) don’t tend to be the most ambitious folks, nor the brightest, it doesn’t surprise me that unless the boss tells them to open both doors, they don’t. I had a different outlook, as I believe that if I’m being paid to do a job, do it well, regardless of the pay/conditions. If you don’t like the job, get a better one, but don’t do a piss poor job.
That’s often a violation of either the local labor code or fire code, or as is the case around here, both.
Whether or not anyone cares to notice or enforce this, is naturally, a different story entirely.
In California, the relevant bit of the labor code is:
***Title 24, Part 2, Section 2-3303(b)(1).) **
(e) Locking. Exit doors shall be openable from the direction of exit travel without the use of a key or any special knowledge or effort whenever the building is occupied. *
That the door is locked or bolted would be construed as “special knowledge or effort.”
Actually, more like 75/25 in favour of looking like an idiot, even with only two doors, as not only do you have to pick the correct door, you also have to choose between pushing and pulling.
Some lucky people have the “suave gene”, one side-effect of which is an innate “door sense” which allows them to pick correctly in all such cases.
I too find this annoying. And even though there is a sign that says Please Use other Door, invariably I am not paying attention and I grab the wrong #$@# door!
In the case of the OP, most of the doors will still open for exiting purposes. Push the panic bars and he doors will open no matter what. Opening them from the outside however, is another story. There’s no code violation.
Entering, you have a 50/50 chance of pulling on the locked door of the pair. Annoying as hell. particularly annoying when you see someone exit from a door so you think it’s the unlocked one and – Gotcha! Wrong! Neener! Neener! Neener!
Huh. Actually, regarding the push/pull side topic, I always thought doors to buildings were supposed to push out, which allows a stampeding herd to exit in a panic, while residence doors are designed to pull out, allowing you to warily open your door to strangers yet still keep your foot behind the door as a safety brace. Or is that something I made up?
There are a lot of rude and crude building owners. I knew of one store that had one door closed all the time, with no sign saying Use Other Door. People were contantly caught off guard, often having to catch things as they shifted around to open the other door. And when I asked the owner/operator about it I was assured that it didn’t work and they just didn’t feel like fixing it. And they ignored the request for a sign. But on re-stocking day I saw that they opened both doors. I tried them and they both worked. I asked him again, and he said that it was no big deal and he simply didn’t require the guy who opened up to “bother” unlatching both doors. A two second process, as I showed him. He was still unmoved. I told him I was done shopping there and he just said “That’s up to you”. Completely unmoved that this would tick people off.
Crash bars obviate that, but I was referring to doors without crash bars. The front entry to this building, just to pick one example has a center pair of outward-opening glass doors flanked by an inward-opening door on either side. (total of 4 doors) None of them have crash bars. The center pair of doors has the usual flip-lock bolt on one and a lock on the other, so it would be easy for someone to be lazy or mean and latch the one side, making it impossible to use that door.
What saves us from certain doom is the labor code, the fact that the front lobby is not a anywhere near a primary egress route, and that the building is open 24x7, so it’s possible nobody even knows where the key is if they wanted to lock it.
There will be variances from area to area on that - in CA, I believe the spec is on buildings with an occupancy of 50 or more people, the door is required to open out.
There is an interesting exception to that - places like jails, psych wards and banks are allowed to have doors that open inward to intentionally delay someone that might have a speedy exit on their mind. More than one bank robber has been knocked out by running full speed at a door and not realizing that it’s not going to pop open when they run into it.
On homes, I’ve not seen anything one way or another in the codes about how the door should open, but traditional security devices like door chains are meant for doors that open in. Also, the hinges on an inward-opening door will be inside the building, providing a bit more security - when the hinges are outside, it might be possible for a burglar to pop out the hinge pins and remove the entire door without any regard to the door’s lock.
