 The best kind of doors are the doors you have to explain. Okay, welcome, welcome to Unhinge with the DoorDork. Today, we do have a very special guest, Mr. Aaron Kramer here. Okay, are you ready? Let's do it. Someone takes a second. Okay, what in the world? So we have an out swinging exterior door. I confirmed with Michael, this is an exterior exit on the back of a restaurant. And they made a screen door on the inside? Are those like operable windows on top? Yeah, it's like a weather door. What's it called? Like it's, well, it's an in swinging door for the first place. That's a big no-no on that fire exit because people are just gonna run right through that. Hopefully they can break through it without getting broken. Doesn't look like a sturdy door, but anyways, anything that you have that like run out and have two doors on your exit, that's a no-no. Where is there, I know like in Florida, there's different codes in place due to hurricane, hurricanes and winds that come along with it. So like residential doors, I know in Florida a lot of times are out swinging, which is different than at least what we have here in Maryland and other places because of that hurricane that happens often. Does that apply to commercial also? So I would say when it comes to different codes, life safety trumps all of them. So if there is a life safety issue like on a path of egress or an exit like this, doesn't matter if it's hurricane rated, you still have to be able to be egress in the case of that kind of emergency. What is that? So you have the push bar and then you have, I'm getting a bolt on the top, what's in the middle? That's a knob. I don't even see a latch for that. There isn't a latch for that, you got that. Is that a decorative knob? So what Michael was telling me is they use the knob to hold the door in while they throw the bolt. The door's not aligned. That's why the top screens are in two pieces. Ah, okay, so they can... So that they just open the screen and they can adjust that, I bet you. I bet you they can lock up at the end of the night without having to open that screen door. What is that white thing on the top of the screen door? I think that's the spring closer for the... Yeah, it's like the residential screen door closers. The pneumatic, you know. There's also a spring right here. So you've got like a double action. That screen door has got to be slamming when you like... I was gonna say, who didn't run through a screen door when they were little? I'm sure by the looks of this one, even though it wants to open the other way, I'm sure in an emergency situation, someone's running through this. It wouldn't matter if they could run through it if the bolt is thrown, right? Also, that's a no-no on an exit door. Hopefully they've been that unlocked during business hours, but you never know. That has a little, it looks like a little magnet or some sort of contact on the top. Yeah, yeah, good eye. Some kind of a door sensor or a security system. They keep that door open and then they keep the screen door closed. They open up a screen to get some air flow or something. Probably. A lot of like kitchen, slacking, like ventilation, depending on the area of how warm or hot it is, they might want the cool breeze coming in. I can only imagine working in a hot kitchen. I don't do well in heat. That's why I live in Oregon. So... Yeah, we have a pizza place in town here and if you park in the back, the back doors typically always open. My favorite part about this is that decorative knob. It's just kind of funny. Yeah, just throw a knob on there. That's fine. Yeah, they could have done one of the fence handles instead. That took a lot of extra effort, I feel like. Or they're somewhere in the restaurant and they're missing a knob now because they just stole it from that door. Probably like the bathroom that's now missing a knob. Okay. Knocking score. What do you guys think? I was going to say so much what you said last time. I give it a five. There are some violations here, but it's not really that terrible from a violation standpoint. It's obviously not good, but it's functional. It's operable to some degree. They're just trying to make it work for themselves. Yeah, the kitchen manager's just trying to make it work, right? I applaud the ingenuity, but I think this is, there could be some life safety implications. So I think it's higher. I'm not going to go quite with the 10, although it could get that way. I'm in the seven, eight range for this. Because if it is bolted during operation, which I doubt it is, that's probably end of the night closing, but there could be some life safety issues here. And especially having a barrier in between egress with the screen door is bad. I agree. I would say even if they are unbolting this during the day, that they would need a sign on here. Code requires a sign on here saying that this needs to remain unlocked during business hours or occupation or something like that. By itself right now, and probably their typical use, it's not that big of a concern, but if worst case scenario, they had that door, they had the door behind it bolted, they could be really bad in the case of someone like breaking in the front door. I mean, this is still life safety, not just fire hazard or concern, but like if someone breaks through the front door or tries to stick you up, this is your one excess out. So if it's thrown during morning hours or something like that, it could lead to some dangerous situations. Okay, the final photo. Are you guys ready? I'm still confused about this one. So let's dive in. First thing I see is some clothes or cover. Yes. I like how the whole door has like a kick plate. You might as well have just done the whole thing. I'm wondering if this is in a hospital and they don't want gurneys or carts or anything bothering marking up the door, but then what's the point? Yeah, I just kind of have a hospital feel to it, but I think, yeah, the oversized kick plates might just... I mean, can we call it a kick plate? Yeah, it's like an armor plate, but it seems bigger than an armor plate. Yeah. That's a body check plate. This one hits you in layers. So it says tornado shelter, but it in swings. I don't know if that's necessarily a code violation. And I know you're like hovering around the trim and how there's no trim on one side, but that can be an inactive leaf. It looks like that right door is used a lot more often. Look at the plate on the bottom. It has like, the left one has like no use on it at all. Yeah. What do you guys see up here? Exit, no rail. Right, interesting. Wait, is it an exit or is it a tornado shelter? Or maybe it's an exit to the tornado shelter or... I was thinking that originally. Maybe it's an exit. Maybe this is a way to get to a tornado shelter and it's not a shelter itself. One thing about exits is having a locking door on the exit side is a note. And also requiring access control. Right, right. So free grass is a no-no. You should have a Rex or something up here if there is some kind of access control. I'm guessing latch retraction or something on the other side. I see it says elevator on the left-hand side. Yep. Is the elevator just adjacent to this picture? Sure. Maybe what's not clear is what's beyond these two doors. Maybe this is a way to get to an elevator also? It's a little hard to see also but it appears to be a mag lock as well. So like they have really secured this exit in some way or another. There's a little bulb right here. They do have an in-swinging door which is good for egress. The lock on a egress door is a no-no and you should have access control requiring for you to badge your way out. Or maybe that's just for the inactive leaf for the mag lock. What's that sound on top of the tornado shelter? There's an alarm with some sort. I mean, I guess that can't be censored. It kind of looks like a fire alarm almost. I'm not sure. Feels like a camera. Could be a camera set up right there. Now, I need to know what's on the other side of the door. Right. Did Ron tell us? No, unfortunately, Ron did not tell us. I guess the world will never know what's beyond this door. Is it an elevator? Is it an exit? Is it a tornado shelter? I don't know. Well, it doesn't have to be an exit, right? It just is on the path of egress. Yeah, path of egress, I guess. Yeah, sorry. And if that's the case, like it doesn't have to be an in-swinging door. Depending on the occupancy, if there is a larger occupancy of I think 50 or more, it would have to be in-swinging or double leafs. But if it's not an actual exit, then we're okay with it being the other way as well. Either way, if it is on the path of egress, you don't want to be confused while you're trying to escape an emergency. I would walk into the door like, wait a second, what's going on? Can I get out? Is it an elevator? If it's a fire, you're not supposed to use elevators, right? Where am I going? I wonder if they have some sort of alarm system that if like a tornado is coming, the alarm system might unlock this door. Like mad locks and stuff like that? I would just say if there's any situation where it's tied into a fire alarm or something like that, there's gotta be a backup system as well. And there's no visible backup emergency override, something like that. There's gotta be two forms of egress through going through this path of egress. The mystery here is killing us. I wonder if this is like, it's a facilities room and there's like a freight elevator in there for facilities, but also that room acts as a shelter and there's probably access to outdoors as well. To three and one. Yeah. It's basically all the utility stuff you don't want to see in the pretty area, but it's also safe for windstorm. Triple threat. That's a good one. That's a good one. Anyway, the best kind of doors are the doors that you have to explain. So especially in case of an emergency. Yeah, it's like in any situation, if you're a door hardware geek and you're in a situation like this when you have to get out into emergency, but you first have to figure out what the deal is with this opening and then you can exit. Yeah. This kind of reminds me of that door that we had that was leading to emergency. It was an exit towards like, was it a nuclear waste plant or something like that? Like there was hazardous material in this door, but it was also an exit. Oh yeah, it was on the path of egress. It was when Katie Flower was on. Yeah, yeah. This kind of reminds me of that door, except for this is a tornado shelter instead. And yeah. Yeah. Kay, any last remarks on this very confusing, complex triple threats, life safety issue before we give it a knocking score? I think we would define that it's just a mysterious opening forever. All it really needs is that this is not a door. Sign to complete this. All right, knocking score. I don't even know what, here's the thing. This doesn't, this looks like it was planned in, right? This does not look like things were added on after. So this looks like it was a fairly new construction or a full renovation and everything was put here. Like I think there's reasoning for everything here and we probably missed the explanation especially because this is a very tight crop. I don't know how to rate this because I feel like outside of this picture is the explanation of what is happening. We need a zoomed out view. So I feel like we're, it's probably, I'm gonna go five because I just don't know. I don't, not enough information provided. Oh, I guess, I guess I could tell you that Ron Huffman is a fire marshal and he was inspecting this facility and he called out this exit for a reason. Yeah, it definitely feels similar to me. It's just hard to know what's what, you know, certainly if it is an exit and, you know, has access control on it and, you know, it's, that would be an issue, but let's pretend that it's not and it's just, you know, a way to get to an exit. So that's not that big of an issue. And also I'd say similar, you know, five, five and a half in terms of the kick plates, you know, they look a little bit funny, but it's not really an issue. You know, overall, it's, you know, it's operable. You know, it seems pretty secure. It's not crazy violations if we're going the non-exit route. I think it's right in the middle. I would agree with you. If this is truly not an exit, which it doesn't appear to be an exit anymore, maybe it was transformed into a tornado shelter for, or an elevator for the renovation. If that is the case, they definitely need to remove that well lit sign. Like that is on as an exit. Cause in the case of emergency and someone is panicking, there needs to be no explanation on a door. It should be self-explanatory how to get out that door. You just follow in those exit signs. So if it is an exit, I would say this is very bad. But if it's not an exit, then it's just a confusing door, right? I agree, we just don't know. Thank you, Mia, as always. And Erin, I appreciate you joining us today. It's a pleasure having you on the show and giving your door hard-runner knowledge to the rest of the door hard-runners out there. Pleasure. Yeah, no, thank you for joining us, Erin. Appreciate it. Join us for the next episode of Unhinged. Our doors are always open, partially cause they're unhinged. If you wanna be featured on a future episode of Unhinged, leave a comment down below. Please like this video and subscribe to our channel to stay up to date when future videos come out. 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