 The best kind of doors are the doors you have to explain. Welcome, welcome to Unhinged. Today we have a very special guest, Mr. Vinnie. Okay, final photo. Are you ready? Yes. Okay. Zoomed out a little bit here. I see a few things right off the bat, like the tripping hazard taped across the floor and looks like there's some obstacles here as well. But what is that to get out? Is that a card swipe or is that a pin code on that? It is a card swipe, it's a hospitality lock. I think it's a Kava or something. Oh yeah, that's an easy 10 right off the bat then. That's terrible. If it's no longer being used as an egress door then it should be identified as such here if there's another one but that's still there and that is still probably on their fire escape plan and everything, that doesn't make any sense. Yeah, because behind this was kind of like kitchen access to the emergency exit. I get why you would wanna put a reader on there to restrict guest access there but you can't do that on the path. Like you said, it's an automatic 10, right? That's a no-no. Yeah, it's a shame too because it looks level. Nice looking door but yeah, it has to be a 10 there. I mean, that's an automatic life safety fail. Now was this where you were just at? Was this something you said, oh my gosh. I'm honored to get one of the GSX ones here. This was at Accelerize, this was Denver again. Oh, okay, I see, I see. I almost put one up from GSX but I knew this was still on the docket and we needed to talk about it so. Gotcha, yeah, I don't like anything about this either and I'm sure that was a temporary setup with whatever's plugged in over there and taped down. They did their best to make it not a tripping hazard. Everything about this is cringe-worthy. They had breakfast there every morning for the hotel and maybe 150 people could sit in this area so this should actually have an exit device on it. Like if you think about it with the load of that area this needs to be an out swinging door with an exit device on it but no, let's just restrict their access instead. I even used my credentials to see like, oh, maybe I'm authorized to survive today but no, I wasn't. I was denied. Yeah, that's terrible. So it looks like there might have been renovations behind where the exit sign is. Is it just the lighting? It almost looks like they put a fresh paint of coat there. There is like a little paint of coat, huh? Yeah, but maybe they- Like redrywalled or something which then was there a different exit sign there should they have been modifying their egress plans and taking that sign down? I don't know how new that hotel was but this is a newer sign, right? Green wasn't widely used until recently. That's true. Yeah, no, that's the newer version of the sign. I mean, the door has seen some wear and tear so the door is probably original with the bill but yeah, they probably redid something up there and they're like, oh, let's continue to have this exit sign up there. And not that it would even excuse it but I mean, there's nothing even there directing someone to an actual egress door for them so there's just nothing. They're gonna get there and the door is gonna be locked. If it wasn't a life to safety fail I would cut them some slack for the plethora of hot sauce options they have for their breakfast bar. I was noticing that. Unfortunately, yeah, inexcusable. Now, I do it when you notice stuff like this do you ever bring it to anyone's attention there and let them know? Or is this, as I meant this one, the other two I could see, you know not really saying anything possibly but this is bad. This is the one that I called into the fire martial office. They had me fill out a report to send to the state or something like that. So hopefully next time I go to Denver and stay at this hotel or go near this hotel they've resolved these issues but I sent this and another photo in with the report tied to telling on them. There's a lot of better ways to kind of monitor the kitchen than to put a card reader on it especially if that is supposed to be an egress door. I'm glad you called that in though because who knows how long it's been set up like that. And through COVID a lot of people have like put their fire inspections on the back burner and people aren't holding them accountable like they used to. And that's the shame. We have to hold the whole industry to a higher accountability because there's fire marshals that do show up and let stuff like this slide which is unfortunate. I was told once that people in the door hardware industry make the worst AHAs because there's about all the little details but in reality it's integrity. You either have it or you don't. It's very black and white. It's either it passes or it fails and if it fails you gotta take care of it. Like in my book you have to. I mean that whole thing should change anyway. It's right on the kitchen. So you know there's a good chance that's where that fire is starting. And that's their path of egress is going through the kitchen. Now I would hope most people you know if they went up and you know they touched the handle or felt heat coming off it they'd be like hey let's not go this way but again you know the sprinkler goes off fire alarm goes off. I mean you're sitting right in there that's the direction you're gonna go and you could potentially be running right into the fire. So that has to be even if not for the car reader there it's just a bad plan. Yeah I mean there is code set up to where the path of egress can't go through like a hazardous environment but I don't know if the kitchen is considered that right cause a lot of restaurants have their egress at the back for their staff to get out. Maybe there needs to be some people to rewrite that cause you're right like that's probably where the fire is gonna start. Yeah I mean that are the toasters right on the table there. Yeah I guess. There's opportunity for fires to start. I'm glad you saved the worst to last that's definitely 100% unequivocally a 10. I'm with you I'm giving it a 10. Yeah 10. No I do have a question for you guys now have you either of you installed a strike before? Yes. You have. Well okay because I went to one of the trainings with Judd actually and this was kind of early on when I was at Eastern security and they had showed us you know how to cut in strikes it's kind of just a refresher course going over a bunch of different products a bunch of the HES line and they use the Dremel Ultra Saw is the one that they showed us. They know made the larger cuts with that and then the smaller Dremel with a smaller cutting wheel on that for the finer cuts and at the time I didn't have a lot of tools I had just started out so I was borrowing a lot of tools from other technicians. What I ended up going with I had the multi-tool already I bought a DeWalt 60 volt angle grinder and that is typically what I use to make the larger cuts on it and I get knocked for it all the time but you know when it's an HES when I have all the templates right there I pop those up I stencil around there I get the painter's tape around that to kind of keep everything contained and I typically with a standard strike like a you know a 1500 I can cut it in pretty quickly but I was curious if you guys had installed them before what tools you typically recommend for cutting in strikes if you go with the multi-tool the jigsaw, the angle grinder, the Dremels for me I've only installed a handful I'll be the first to admit I'm not a technician by any means and it was in kind of instructor led environments what you were at I've seen people use angle grinders before and it can do the job but also like if you don't do it well and the blade's not sharp like it's that's when you tend to see some of the more hack jobs out there if that makes any sense I've seen the Dremel and the Multi-Tool are like the go-to but I'm efficient with it and you do a clean job like I don't see like there's anything wrong with it like no and that's the thing with the angle grinder especially to you know the DeWalt one that I got which most of my tools are Milwaukee that's like the one DeWalt one I use regularly other than the vacuum because it's got that flexible battery so it's compatible with the 60 volts which is you know a ton of power for an angle grinder but it's very easy to control they've got like a good breaking mechanism on it it's got you know the handle on it like a lot of them do there and you know I can't think of any time where I've over cut anything and you got to be conservative with it and kind of know what it's starting to get away from you and stop then and I was curious you know what you're going to show me for doors because I had saw one that you did where it was a strike and there's cuts all over the door and it's obvious they were from a Multi-Tool you know you got that turn all the way up and that thing skips when it skips especially if it's a you know an older blade on it the blades are expensive on them as well too it's you know you know you get a multi-pack of them sometimes it's you know 30 to 50 bucks there depending on the brand and you really can't do it with a DeWalt one that you find you have to replace them a lot the angle grinder I get like a 10 pack of cutting wheels for not that much and if it's even slightly dull I just toss it right out and grab a different one and it's ready to go but I just doubled upon something there I think I know which strike you're talking about and it literally looked like a murder scene because it had red paint behind it do you remember that one Mia? Yes I do so bad yeah no that's one of those things that everyone I've seen do them installs them a little differently and everyone's got their tool of choice I'm always interested to know what other door hardware nerds use for it I would say like the templates are key like do you have the metal magnet templates? Like those things like make a world of difference they really do because even like if you get the paper template up there and you get a position just right and you tape it down even then there's give with it the metal ones you just like throw it up there make sure it's all lined mark it out like you're good to go I would don't have the magnetic ones the ones I have just kind of screw right into place you take the face plate out and you pop those right in there and it's adjustable based on the model and I've got one for I think every different common HES strike and it just kind of screws right in like a regular face plate would and you kind of stencil around that but also look into the magnetic ones that's convenient Screw it into the face plate then later gonna be aligned every single time right as long as the thing else matches up so yeah, those templates sound good Yeah, I've got my main box and my door tools bag and then I keep another one in the truck as an emergency one in case I forget them one day or if I lose them because they're invaluable they cut the time down so much I wish I had them for some of the other ones I do a lot of the 7400s and that would be great to have a template for I've done enough of them, it's easy enough to do at this point but I were the first couple I kind of guessed on a little bit because I didn't come with any kind of paper template or anything so it's like, all right, well and you know, you cut off a little bit like a barber, you can always take more off but yeah, the first couple I remember really fighting with them Pretty sure they make like a magnetic template for the 7400 I'm gonna make a note and we can send you out one I'm sure the product manager would love to have it I really love that HES video that you did showing the inside of it Yeah and I'm finding a lot of the stuff like that actually is kind of taking off on TikTok and again, we're still kind of in beta on that I was told you gotta run with it and see how it does but yeah, a lot of people are interested in seeing how that kind of stuff works is a lot of times you walk by and before you guys were in this industry probably never, it seemed for me anyway I never gave it a second thought if I scan the card and the door unlocks that did its job but to see the internal mechanism of it it's fascinating by the time this airs I've already done this video but I'm actually going to do one for a mag lock but to demonstrate how it works I'm going to put a tool up on the magnet and I'm going to press the rex button and the tool is going to come down I'm going to have my buddy down below with a hard hat on it's going to give him the old clunk unfortunately it's something to demonstrate with a mag lock you can't really see it as much it's going to be a good one though Okay, well, thank you Vinny so much for joining us on Unhinged I really appreciate your time our doors are always open on Unhinged join us for the next episode let me try that again let's I was like, how's he going to pull it back? Vinny thank you for your insight thank you for your time we appreciate you hopping on Unhinged with us today absolutely thank you very much for having me guys I have an open door here as well and in case so any emergencies feel free to reach out for anything you might need I'm far right there join us on the next episode of Unhinged like Vinny's door our door is always open because it's Unhinged if you want to be featured on a future episode of Unhinged or if you have a picture to submit you can email me at Mia at doorhardwarenerds.com thanks for watching