 The best kind of doors are the doors you have to explain. Welcome, welcome to Unhinged with the DoorDork where door hardware nerds get together. We knock and we slam on different door fails. We learn, we laugh, sometimes we even cry, but most importantly, we have fun while we learn a little bit more about different door hardware fails and installs and look at unique door hardware applications. Today, we have a very special nerd joining us, Mr. Adam Dowden. Thanks for joining us today. Why don't you hop on and introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about what you do and then maybe a fun fact. Excellent, excellent. I'm Adam Dowden. I'm on the business development team with Sergeant Corbin Russwin. You know, one of my favorite things about that side of the business is it's not just the sales side. I get to work with all the different departments such as, you know, MIA and the product management engineering and everything that makes the world spin for us. Really, really love that. Been in the security life safety industry for about 15 years. Kind of a fun fact. Prior to that, I sold construction equipment. So rubber track loaders, excavators, you know, the big samples. We had to put them on a trailer to haul them out to show them off. And I still have a collection of keys that may or may not operate equipment out there, you know, around the job sites should the need arise. But it's a privilege to be here today with you icons of the door hardware industry. So thank you for having me. Well, I don't know about icons, but thanks. That's fascinating. Yeah, especially the fact that you have some keys that might operate some heavy duty equipment. Not much key control on that side of the business. Maybe letting secrets out there, but yeah. Yeah, that's actually pretty dangerous if you think about it. Like though you can do some damage with those. I've seen like ATM robberies with excavators like going through like 7-Eleven stores. I didn't get into all that. I didn't get into all that. That's not the kind of deals you were doing, right? I don't know. No, no, no, no, no. I was just moving dirt around, but that sounds the next level. Love it. Thanks for being here. And as always, you know her. You love her. Mrs. Mia Mayer, why don't you jump on and say hi? Hello. Yes. So this is our episode right after Halloween. So welcome episode 16. And my fun fact is going to be Halloween related even though we're just after Halloween. So for my daughter's first Halloween, I took her trick or treating at Sargent. That was the only place she went because she was nine months old. So we didn't think door to door was really the place, but she got to trick or treat around to lunch in and she was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And I'm actually going to pop in a little picture of us. We both dressed as Ruth Bader Ginsburg together. So she didn't feel alone. That's awesome. You know, you could have gone trick or treating down the innovation showroom and gone door to door. So maybe that's what we could have doing in the future. Yeah, we'll have everybody behind a door. The kids can come and knock. There's plenty of doors at Sargent that you can say. Yeah, there's plenty of doors. We know people with doors, right? Yeah, we'll have to propose that to HR. Zae, if you're watching. I didn't think about that, but you know, that's got to be a very door heavy holiday Halloween. There's a lot of knocking. There's a lot of opening and shutting. And hopefully everyone's got their doors up to code. I don't know. Benjy, what are your kids being for Halloween this year? Do you know yet? Actually, they're big fans of the movie, Light Air on Disney Plus. So my oldest is going to be Buzz Light Air. And then my youngest is actually going to be Sox, the companion robot. Meow, meow, meow, meow. If you haven't, you should see it. It's cute. It's a great little show. And they got obsessed with it real fast. Oh, I have a Halloween robot experience. It was when I was younger, tried to dress up as a robot and had these metal flex arms. And I was really proud of myself, but everywhere I went, they thought I was a washing machine. So maybe we can get a picture of that up here too, but that's my Halloween robot experience. Nice. I love it. My kids are being Spidey from Spidey and his amazing friends. And then my daughter is going to be Ghost Spider. Yes, they're so excited. Love Spider-Man, love Spider-Man. So for those who don't know how Unhinge works, I will share my screen, some different door hardware fell, some installation mistake, code violation, some issue or unique or even incredible about a particular door application. So we'll each knock and slam on it. We'll give any helpful tips and learning tricks to the trade. And then we'll give it a knocking score. One being not too knocking bad and 10 being pretty knocking bad. Let's call the AHA. Let's get the fire marshal in here. Let's get this taken care of. How does that sound, Adam? You ready? That sounds great. Let's do it. I like this. I like this. Oh wait, I'm not supposed to like it, am I? I like that. It's sticking with the Halloween theme. I've never seen Batman use a ladder. Doesn't he like have a special tools to allow him to fly, you know, mechanically from building to building? Kind of interesting there. So I mean, this front of the exit device, that's almost a given in retail as much as we hate it. Looks like no, there is a door closer up there. I was trying to figure out if that was an auto operator. Cause I thought I saw a button to the side. I'm not sure what that is next to the exit device. See a little metal plate. I thought maybe that was like a release button for a mag lock or something, which could be blocked by the ladder, but we're just speculating now. Could just be a wire chase, right? Yeah, I think that's where they got power to the door somehow. At least the ladders on wheels. So when the HJ shows up, they can quickly whisk it away and pretend it was never there. And I also like that the tile and the ladder are color coordinated. I think that's excellent. Yeah, they were very thoughtful process here. Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing that we just see every day, you know? I would say, I don't know. You go into almost any retail shop and you're going to see something very similar to this. I come from a retail management background and I was very clear about keeping our exits wide open and clear, but you know, stuff happens. You get a massive shipment of something that you weren't expecting and it's got to go somewhere. And so you put it right in front of the door, even though you're not supposed to and you're slowly working on it. But if something happened in that moment, like, whoa, that's very scary. And you know, to that point, it's been kind of funny working in the construction industry. Everybody always wants more storage, but that's one of the things that gets cut. Cause you know, if you're paying so much per square foot to build your space, it's like, we don't want to pay for more storage and more closets and all that. And so inevitably we end up in situations like this. Not excusable, but happens all the time. It's a vicious cycle. I don't know, maybe it's just your name, but like you kind of remind me a little bit of Batman. So when I saw this, I was like, hey, that's got like Adam written on it. I like that. So my middle name is Wayne. So I could be a Bruce, but well, I just gave it away. So I guess I'm not Batman. If I was going to be, I could go, I could use my middle name. If I had to rate this, it's easy to solve. But in an event where all the lights are out, it could be really detrimental. You know, it could actually be a real life safety issue. So, you know, I'd say maybe only like a three or four in terms of how hard it's going to be to fix the issue. But I mean, this could be a six, seven or eight. If there was a true emergency and you had power failures and people couldn't figure out where to go. Yeah, no, I'm with you. I do have one question. And I got to get into character here. Where's the H.J.? I'll let me respond to that. That's my best Batman impression. Kind of like the bat signal, you know, the spotlight, but with an exit sign flashing in the sky or something along those lines. Yeah, we need that for the door hardware nerds. Some kind of like a beacon. So, number one, whenever I hear of Batman, I think of Will Arnett and the, I'm Batman. No, I'm Batman. I can't do the voice, obviously, but for this, this could be up to a 10, especially since that ladder extends higher than the whole opening. You know, if it was like a six foot ladder, maybe you could just push it out on your way. But this is really in a blockier entire path of egress, depending on the occupancy, how many people are rushing up against the door. Easy to solve, like you said, Adam, but could be really detrimental. Now, do I really want to give this one a 10? I don't know if I want to go as high as a 10, but has the potential to be all the way out there. I would say the 10 for if the ladder was welded to the door. I mean, so I'm surprised we haven't seen that yet, but we've seen stuff pretty close. That'd be pretty knocking bad. I'm with you, Adam, where if the lights went out, and especially Batman still there, if I was like running towards the exit, and I saw Batman like, what? Just deep brass people with this and you're trying to figure out how to get away from them. So, pretty knocking bad, but not, maybe not a 10. Can we agree with that? Yeah. Kat, are you guys ready for the next one? Yeah. If you want to be featured on a future episode of Unhinged, or if you have a photo to submit, please leave a comment down below.