I work at a college and recently was moved into an office with no windows, but it has an emergency exit door with no window at all in it. Above the door, going the rest of the way to the 12′ ceiling, is a transom light. The location of this door makes it a fire door. It opens up to grade level outside my office. It has a building fire escape stairway that ends on a metal grated landing above it. I’d like to get the door replaced with a glass door. I’m trying to go about figuring what the most practical and economical way to do that would be.
I got an informal quote from one glass company online (TGP) of $13-14k (not installed) for a replacement assembly that would include the door and transom light, jambs and everything. It would satisfy code AND be a very gorgeous piece of architecture, but I’m wondering if there’s any other companies/products out there that wouldn’t be so high end, but would still meet the code requirements, plus my requirement for it to be a window as well as a door.
TGP said they could only provide an entire replacement assembly as described, and that they could not just provide a drop-in replacement for the door itself. I’m wondering why they can’t do the latter. Since the existing door is already a fire door, shouldn’t the existing jambs, threshold and transom already be sufficient to just remain in place, with a new door attached?
I’m just wondering if anyone out there will read this post and have a lot more experience working out this kind of a proposition than me, and could share their thoughts and advice on what the right solution to look for is.
I’m attaching a zip file file containing a bunch of pictures of the door and hardware, in case they help you see what I’m talking about better than my descriptions 🙂
Thanks for any feedback anyone might have!
-John
Replies
Commercial fire doors get certified as a complete assembly (and there are some moderately good reasons why that is the case).
Just buy the $14K door.
Make sure you hire someone to install recommended by your union. DN (a contributor here) can likely recommend a licensed 'inginear' on your staff to make sure the design is done correctly.
Or, just hold out for tenure, then milk the cow and get a better office ?
You work for Smith college, right? Just tack on some extra $$ to your most recent textbook markups and a few more bucks onto the $44,724 tuition.
Nothing too good for our 'educators' and support staff, right?
At least you are looking at economics, which is more than your 'colleagues' apparently do.
re: "into and office with no windows" aha, the old college obfuscation, just one window, eh - what is that to the left of the door, eh, photo 9 ?
Contributing Grandparent of 3 present college students.
fire door
Are you saying that the existing door is a fire RATED door in a fire rated wall assemble or a fire EXIT door in the line of travel to a desiginated emergencey exit? There is a big difference.
Photo #9 shows an illuminated EXIT sign, indicating that it IS a designated emergency EXIT.
Probably local fire marshall needs to be involved in any changes. Possibly not in some areaas, but betchum near 100% probability in MA.
Facilities Management
I bet your college has a Facilities Manager or something along that line that this needs to be coordinated through. This door serves more than just you as an exit path and that's where the FM comes into play and he should know the requirements of this door.
Doing this on your own could be grounds for a short career at this employer.
John,
We've ordered a glass and trim kit from the local lumberyard and installed it in metal doors like that shown. Cost a few hundred instead of thousands. One of them was in a bank and was an exit door.
KK
Contractor List
Then ask the FM if he/she has a list of apporveved contractors he/she already has experience with and knows the the college's 'system'. It'll shorten you list to know who you are and aren't supposed to work with.
Contractor List
Then ask the FM if he/she has a list of apporveved contractors he/she already has experience with and knows the the college's 'system'. It'll shorten you list to know who you are and aren't supposed to work with.
Confused? I Am.
OK.... first off .... there's no reason a rated door cannot be put in a rated frame with rated hardware. Such items are very often from different manufacturers.
If the door maker requires a particular frame, it's quite possible there are other reasons, such as hinge construction, that an 'ordinary' frame won't work.
This brings up the real question .... what, exactly, is required? It's pretty unusual for an exterioir door to be required to have a fire resistance rating ... after all, to where will the fire spread? OTOH, there are often specific security requirements. UL rates things for burglary security as well as fire resistance; what, exactly, does the label on the existing door say?
FWIW, it is allowed to add a window, as large as 100 sq. inches, to a rated fire door. Any door shop can do this for you.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Now, for a snarky aside. In Heaven, I bet there are angles who gripe about the harp music, and wish for softer clouds. Really! I can't imagine any employer I've had forking over $14K for a door. Heck, I have trouble getting replacement Sharpies! Were I to complain about 'the view,' the boss would likely respond that I needed to stop daydreaming and get back to work.
Small wonder college is so expensive!!!
Having spend two years of my life buried so deeply in an office building that cellphone signals couldn't penetrate (almost literally "the mushroom theory of management"), I can appreciate John's wish. If a satisfactory solution could be worked out for under, say, $2000, I would guess it would be a good investment, in terms of improved productivity.
I'm definitely surprised at the element of bellyaching I've been hearing in some of these replies, about the cost to do something like this, and that it's someone working at a college who's asking about it. But then again, maybe I'm not surprised. I do wonder what all those complaining are doing even frequenting a forum that's operated by a publication called Fine Home Building. When's the last time you ever heard about anyone doing anything that emphasized doing fine work, high quality, craftsmanship, etc., and one of its highlights was how cheap and inexpensive it is to work like that? How can you have an appreciation/interest in fine homebuilding, etc., and not also have an idea that any work or job done well generally isn't cheap?
But I need to back up. The complainers haven't even shown they've fully read or comprehended what I'm doing. They've been too eager to hang their own malcontent gripes on me to pay that much attention. All I said is that I'd like a metal door replaced with a glass one so that it functions as a window as well as a door. And I wanted to do my own work of figuring out what that shouild reasonably cost to do the job correctly. Yes, someone I already talked to said it would cost $14k just for the components. So how does that become I'm asking my employer to buy it and pay to install it? It doesn't. Maybe I thought that was more money that I think it should cost, but I don't really know, right? So what do you do? You go looking for more info about it from other sources as well. That's as far as I am with it. Picking on the idea because its someone who works at a college because you've got a personal problem with the cost of college in general is fine, if you want to do that. But it's got nothing to do with me or what I'm actually doing at this point.
Maybe I should turn around and ask if the people doing that whining had better things to do than penning sour grapes? But I won't. I don't want to waste any more time on it.
Thank you everone else otherwise, for the helpful feedback. I appreciate it, and they're the kind of responses I was hoping to get when I came to this source. I've had goo experiences that way here years ago and I'm glad to see at least some people like that are still around :)
-John
Ever heard of INITIATION or Hazing.
You shudda been here in the good old days 10 years ago <G>
"Some People?"
Or just me?
Good heavens ... for $14K you could mount one heck of a flat screen TV on the door, and feed it from a camera outside- AND have money left over to pay a stripper to dance in front of the camera. Heck, $14K is half a years' pay out here in the real world; or the price of a new car.
Next thing you know, you'll want a screen door and be setting up a bird feeder.
Look at it this way ... If I want to spend $3K each to equip every room in my house with tornado-proof doors, that's my call and my money. (Remember what they say about fools and money?).
It's a whole different thing when you want to spend MY money for YOUR door. That's what schools do, isn't it? Have you looked at tuition lately? When I visit a public facility, I'd rather see card tables and plastic patio chairs, than the latest in fashionable marble and steel. I'd just as soon see the school housed in a commercial 'tilt-up' or simple block building .... I fail to see the virtue in having classes in a pretty building.
A window. You need a window. As i read that, I reflected on the architects who proudly described their quest to remove windows from classrooms. Indeed, I can't recall the last time I saw a classroom with a window you could look out from. Having helped build a middle school, a high school, and a performing arts complex in the past year, that's saying something.
How can something be 'good' for you and 'bad' for the students?
So my only question is ... you want cheese with that whine?
PS: Don't try to BS us by claiming it's a "private university." Nearly all have outrageous tuitions .... and only one gets NO public funding. I can only imagine what would happen were you to raise this request at, say, Hillsdale College, or The College of the Ozarks.
I think you're the one who's whining. Give it a break.
Fire Door?
There's no way this is a rated fire door - it should be labeled on the hinge side edge of the door. A fire door is just a part of a fire wall...there's no way to place an operable window (like the one next to the door) in a rated fire wall. Or to have the amount of window openings seen just in these pictures.
Assuming it's not a fire door...the most obvious solution to me would be to leave the frame and transom intact and just replace the door with a bronze anodized aluminum storefront type door with full glazing... It would fit nicely with the bronze anodized frame and could easily be ordered and installed by any comercial glass dealer in your area. You likely could also use the existing exit bar and door closer hardware. You will also have several door frame widths to choose from. You should be able to have the whole thing done for a $1500 or so - door should run about $1000 plus installation...
Good luck..
I think you're probably correct about it not being a rated fire door. It definitely doesn't have any labeling. And the metal on both front and rear of the door feels and sounds more like it's a thin layer of aluminum skin over some type of solid foam or composite core of some kind. But, maybe the issue is that when it was installed, however many decades ago, it was legal? But nowadays it wouldn't be, except it's grandfathered? If that's the case, I've heard in the past with other situations that old, illegal stuff like that can remain, as long as no modifications or changes or made. But once someone wants to renovate or do anything, it triggers a requirement to do everything by code, and bring things up to code that aren't. I'm assuming that's what the situation would be here. Does that sound likely? Our facilities guy that I've already spoken with informally said that a fire door in this location is required because of the fire escape landing that is just a few feet above the top of this doorway, on the outside. When I asked him if all the windows on this side of the building that the fire escape stairways descend directly in front of are fire rated barriers or not, and I said it doesn't look like they are, he agreed and said they are probably illegal. Except that, since it all has been in place for many decades, it's all grandfathered.
-John
More hazing:
You need to take a remedial class there in separateing text into paragraphs ?
no, i doesnt need no spieling clas neither....
junkhound: I'm sorry your
..life is mostly passed, and you didn't learn the pleasure of being nice to people. I hope your grandchildren are more fortunate.
Contact local code enforcement...
I'm not able to read all of the responses as I write this, so I apologize in advance if I am covering information that's already been covered.
There's a difference between required exit doors and fire rated doors.
* Exit doors are placed around the building to provide exitng in case of an emergency and often have no rating requirement (for instance, any entry doors to a business like grocery or commercial stores that front directly onto a street - these are clearly exist doors, but not rated in any way).
* Fire rated doors are part of a fire rated wall system that's used to separate one space or use from another. Examples of a fire rated door are the doors in a stairwell - these doors are both fire exit doors and would have a fire rating. Another examle of a rated door is the door from parking garage and and the other spaces in an office building or a door from a manufacturing area and the adjoining offices - this door is part of the required separation between these uses, but may not be a required exit door.
I've not run across the requirement for a rated fire door (and wall system) below a fire escape landing (not too many here in the NW). However, I was just in NY City and every single multi-story building in the 5 boroughs with a fire escape violate this code requirement!! Most of these exiting requirements have been in place for many, many years. I can see the requirement for a required exit door including the crash bar and overhead closer), but It make no sense to install a rated fire door with a 3'x5' unrated window above it and operable windows around it - all under the the fire escape landings...the least vulnerable part of this arrangement is the door - no matter how much glass is in it.
As we know, just because it doesn't make sense, doesn't mean it won't be required. This situation requires more code investigation and I would search out an interpretation from your local code enforcement folks.
That's a great job articulating what I think the reality here is. My bet is the existing configuration is all grandfathered, but changes would be subject to compliance with current code. I've just added a couple of pictures of the outside that show the whole fire escape structure and windows/doors.
Further checking required...
Depending on the location of other exits in the building, there are exemptions for stairway enclosures and exit balconies/stairways. Chapter 10 of the IBC is all about exiting (I think sub-chapter 1020 is the appropriate resource) and, as I explained above, most of these requirements have been in existance for decades. If you're lucky enough to have a good building department nearby, it would be my next stop. I would not rely solely on your facilities person.
What do you mean by a good building department? A municpal office of some sort?
Yup.
I'll assume this building is located in a town or city.. There would be an agency within the local government that's responsible for reviewing proposed plans, issuing building permits and inspecting the work as it progresses. Their primary job is to insure that construction work proposed and completed meets building code requirements. Should be able to find in on the 'net with little effort. In my experience, they are very helpful, especially with folks that are not in the construction field.
Proposed work..
The building department (or some similar name like Department ofCommunity Development) will likely be the agency to review the work you are proposing..I believe this would require a building permit because it involves an exit door. If it were just maintenance or to replace the door with something similar, perhaps not. But to change to an entirely different door probably would require one. They would be able to tell you whether something like this would require a permit or not...
Still Something Wrong About This Job
I mean... $14K ... Really?
I can't believe that every retail business in town as $14K invested in each of their glass doors- not even the 'frameless' ones!
For perspective, I can get a tornado rated door, with its' special frame, retrofitted to my house for about $3K. That includes everything- parts, labor, whatever. Even if I aplied my 'special rate' for government jobs, I'm still only half what you were quoted.
Schools are typically their own 'government entity,' and can pretty much do as they please.
What???
I don't know what your experience with schools is, but I've don'e work for 3 universities in the Seattle area including the University of Washington...none of them are "their own 'government entity,' and can pretty much do as they please" - all are under jurisdiction of City of Seattle or State of Washington for permits and inspections (including fees) - just like any other business. While they have their own "Facilities Department", they only act as the University's representative, contact and records keeping body.. The FD has a Univerisity Architect plus staff and are very educated in code requirements. In a case like that stated above, they would know if the code required a permit for the work or not, but I seriously doubt they have the ability to issue their own building permits.
As far as "do as they please", you make it sound like they can arbitrarily make things up as they go. They are bound by the same building codes we all are. They certainly can be more restrictive than the Code requires, but are held to the same minimum requirements applied to all businesses.
Commercial doors are not cheap. $14000 sounds high to me too, but I used to do commercial work as a glazier in the 70's and it was very expensive then.
Just had one priced out...
Just had a storefront quoted the other day....$40 per square foot for the whole rough-in opening (glazing and doors - in this case it was 40' long x 8' tall = 320sf x $40 = $12,800) plus $500 extra per door opening within the rough opening area (in this case included 2 doors x $500 each = $1,000). Total estimate was $13,800 installed.
$500 Is More Believable!
... Especially when they're swapping doors out!
While it's possible to buy a door that can't use the existing frame, finding a compatable door would be the FIRST thing on my spec sheet.
Off the top, I'd have serious questions about any job that was priced over $3000. Not to say anyone is being unfair- just to make a guess that there was a serious misunderstanding somewhere.
As for that 'government entity' thing .... let's see .... If a body can assess it's own taxes, have it's own 'real' police department, is expempt from taxing by other bodies, has a board elected by the general public .... sure sounds like government body to me.
My experience with schools, transit authorities, sewer districts, airports, etc. has been that while they usually get free 'courtesy' permits from the local village, and use the village's inspection department. Their plans and contract will specify which codes they use, and there frequently are provisions that do not conform to the usual codes. To be fair, these variations typically have some reasonable justification.
(Not always, though. I installed one generator whose roar would never have been tolerated had they been required to comply with the local "noise ordinance.")
Remember the 'anthrax scare, circa 2002? With ashortage of the appropriate medicine being felt by those who actually had reason to fear exposure, I was appalled to witness purchasing officers of two such "independent" agencies stockpiling the stuff 'just in case.' This was all the more interesting in that neith body had so much as a company nurse, or any sort of clinic. Yet, that did not prevent these folks from beating the 'we're government' drum to circumvent the rules everyone else was bound by.
That's a pretty good size opening. I mainly just did the glazing itself. Back then plate glass was still common, I got sick of being sliced up all the time. I'm glad to be out of that line of work.
I got an education and worked in manufacturing for the last 35 years, too young to retire, but almost too old to keep up anymore, I hope I don't get laid off before I can retire. I work for a major company now that everyone in the world has heard of, but they filed bankruptcy about 3 years ago, and I'm not sure they won't again. Layoffs and rumors of layoffs everyday. Well over half the workforce is gone now. It's hard for an old guy with health issues that looks even older than he is to get a good job in manufacturing anymore, that business is steadily being outsourced to "low cost labor regions". We found that didn't work out so good though for very high precision and complex systems, Mexico and China and Malaysia outsourced work is all returning to Ohio. I've been working on setting up the assembly line for a while, and we start officially manufacturing everything here on Jan 01, 2016. It's going to be interesting. We make commercial inkjet print systems. Electronics manufacturing will remain offshore though.