Morphdesigns
Sawhorse
Have a client that is renovating an existing 5-story building. Current building has 2 stair towers on the building corners. Building will also have a public elevator and a freight elevator ( w/ no public use). The public elevator will have special key-card access to go up to the upper 3 levels. The building will be sprinklered and the top 3 floors will be used as high-end valuable storage, with no public access, so this building will have specific employees that will access these upper 3 floors to bring and obtain the high-end storage on these levels. The bottom 2 floors are used a offices and assembly areas.
In the stairways, we will be using panic hardware from the 2nd level for egress (Assembly, more than 50 ppl exiting) and we will have handle locksets on the door side facing the stairwell. However, the upper 3 floors, the owner wants to use a lever lockset for exiting from the storage areas, but a blank plate on the stairwell side, so if anybody goes up the stairwells, they cannot access these upper 3 levels.
So can this be done?
I would say no because if there is a fire on the upper 3 floors, with no lever lockset, the fireman will not be able to access those floors because there is no handle to open the door.
Building is in Wisconsin, using IBC 2009
In the stairways, we will be using panic hardware from the 2nd level for egress (Assembly, more than 50 ppl exiting) and we will have handle locksets on the door side facing the stairwell. However, the upper 3 floors, the owner wants to use a lever lockset for exiting from the storage areas, but a blank plate on the stairwell side, so if anybody goes up the stairwells, they cannot access these upper 3 levels.
So can this be done?
I would say no because if there is a fire on the upper 3 floors, with no lever lockset, the fireman will not be able to access those floors because there is no handle to open the door.
Building is in Wisconsin, using IBC 2009