LGreene
Registered User
Happy New Year all...
Last week I took my family for a short vacation on Cape Cod. The "resort" was a series of 2-story buildings with fire doors between them. There were also cross-corridor doors mid-way down each guest room corridor.
All of these doors were propped open with wedges, the latches had been removed, and most of the doors were in terrible condition. The guest rooms are not sprinklered, and the doors to the lobby were also propped open so there was no separation between the guest room corridors and the lobby, restaurants, ballroom / meeting room area, etc.
I'm assuming that since the doors had painted-over labels, the code requires fire doors in those locations, or at least it did at one time. And I don't know why the doors would be present mid-way down the corridors unless they are required for a smoke separation. I would like to bring this to the attention of the hotel, but I'd like to have a little back-up information before I do. Maybe something has changed so the separation is no longer required?
Determining which doors need to be rated isn't normally part of my job as a hardware consultant. Can any of you point me in the right direction? We are currently transitioning from the 2003 IBC to the 2009 IBC, and we were on BOCA '93 when the building was last renovated in 2004. The building was originally built in 1970, and I'm not sure which code was being used back then since I was more interested in teething biscuits than fire doors. All of the editions I listed have Massachusetts amendments, but if you get me started I will do the research. I'm not worried about being too specific...that's someone else's job.
Thanks in advance! And in case you want to see the floor plan or any photos, I did a few blog posts while I was there. Here are a couple that show the doors in question:
http://idighardware.com/2010/12/another-hotel/
http://idighardware.com/2011/01/top-hinge-retrospective/
Last week I took my family for a short vacation on Cape Cod. The "resort" was a series of 2-story buildings with fire doors between them. There were also cross-corridor doors mid-way down each guest room corridor.
All of these doors were propped open with wedges, the latches had been removed, and most of the doors were in terrible condition. The guest rooms are not sprinklered, and the doors to the lobby were also propped open so there was no separation between the guest room corridors and the lobby, restaurants, ballroom / meeting room area, etc.
I'm assuming that since the doors had painted-over labels, the code requires fire doors in those locations, or at least it did at one time. And I don't know why the doors would be present mid-way down the corridors unless they are required for a smoke separation. I would like to bring this to the attention of the hotel, but I'd like to have a little back-up information before I do. Maybe something has changed so the separation is no longer required?
Determining which doors need to be rated isn't normally part of my job as a hardware consultant. Can any of you point me in the right direction? We are currently transitioning from the 2003 IBC to the 2009 IBC, and we were on BOCA '93 when the building was last renovated in 2004. The building was originally built in 1970, and I'm not sure which code was being used back then since I was more interested in teething biscuits than fire doors. All of the editions I listed have Massachusetts amendments, but if you get me started I will do the research. I'm not worried about being too specific...that's someone else's job.
Thanks in advance! And in case you want to see the floor plan or any photos, I did a few blog posts while I was there. Here are a couple that show the doors in question:
http://idighardware.com/2010/12/another-hotel/
http://idighardware.com/2011/01/top-hinge-retrospective/