Our client was apparently told by a fire-marshal that an…

…interior security check-point door needed a panic-device for emergency exit.

The door was already set-up with a switched electric-strike that allowed the receptionist to buzz folks in through the door, or a potential entrant could use the FOB reader on the entry side. But the door was also tied into a motion-sensor on the exit side, so it should have been fine the way it was.

But when it comes to the powers that be, ours is so very often not to reason why.
This is the original latching lock, one of the 4700 series locks from ADAMS RITE, with a lever-handle on the exit side, and a cylinder on the entry side.

And this is the original electric strike-plate, one of the 7100 series models from ADAMS RITE. To exit through this door, all you had to do was approach the door, and the motion sensor would release the lock and you had only to push the door open.

But again, we are often asked to do things that don’t make obvious sense to us. So we installed a HES 9600 Surface-Mount Electric Strike to work with the new panic device.

Frankly, this low-profile electric-strike has been a god-send for our retro-fit security access business.

The Von Duprin Model 33AEO Panic Device.

Made for doors with narrow-stiles, such as this U. S. Aluminum Storefront Door.

Please note how we filled and/or covered the previous lock-preps on the door.

The iconic Albers Mill Building at the west end of the of the Broadway Bridge on the Willamette River was built in 1909.

Now being leased- out as office space, one of the new tenants has asked that the locks be changed-out to facilitate their needs.

For reasons that are not explained to us, the existing mortise-case lock must go and be replaced with a standard cylindrical lock.

Given that the door is finished naturally, filling-in the existing lock-preps will not be a viable option. The property managements on-site..

…manager has a spare door with the necessary type of lock. It’s the correct width, height & door-swing. Only problem is that the hinge locations & latch height…

…differ from the original door, which is where our services come into play. Replacing the 16-guage hollow-metal steel drywall-frame, as these are called is certainly not an economical…

…option, so moving the hinge-mortises on the door is accompanied with new wood to fill the original mortise locations, which are later stained to match the door.

And the original electric-strike-plate is removed and the original mortise is filled-in there as well. Backer-plates are installed, steel-filler-material is customized and installed, and the surgery is…

…is finished with Bondo and later, a paint-job will erase all traces of the original strike-plate location. As you can see, we’ve also cut-out for and installed a new standard strike-plate at a lower location.

Wendy’s on North Lombard.

An old single entry U.S. Aluminum Storefront Door with many miles on it.

The panic-device (panic-bar) has ceased its dependability.

As you can see, it has been pieced together with aftermarket nuts and bolts.

Apparently, the door originally used an Adams Rite MS+1890 Lock Series. No doubt the fire marshal required that the exit-device be added later.

The surface-mount hydraulic door closer (International 850 or 880 Series) is a good idea, but it’s not properly installed. Also, Internationals 5000 or 8000 series closers might be better on a high traffic door like this.

We gave our client an option to replace the panic device with something a little heavier duty, as well as the option to replace it with like-kind.

They picked “Like-Kind.”

The Jackson 1095 Series Crossbar Rim Panic Device.

The finished product.

Avamere at Bethany is an assisted Living & Care facility
In N.W. Portland.

One among many of the very nice care facilities we’ve seen spring up around town the past several decades.

Around back they have a set of exterior doors leading to a relatively secluded courtyard…

…that is frequently accessed by the facility population who sometimes need help getting the door open.

So we were asked to provide a proposal to install a handicap door operator for use during the day time.

They still wanted to lock the door at night, but unless expensive electronic locks and coded keypads are considered, the door is going to need to remain unlocked during the day.

Added to the requirements was the desire for the door be self-locking after-hours so as to avoid it being left unlocked.
The Schlage B250P6 Night Deadlatch was just the ticket. Note: The new Push & Pull Plates cover the old keylock prep.

In the daytime, the latch can be left retracted via a button on the interior side. And although it may look like a deadbolt at a glance, that’s a latch…not a bolt, so if someone goes out at night, the door will close and latch by itself.

Here we have a shot of the interior trim having been removed while our technician Brandon (not shown) installs the Falcon 8242 Handicap Operator Mounting Bracket.
You may enlarge the photo for a closer view by clicking on it.

After finishing the installation of the operator, the interior trim is cut to fit around the operator for a finished professional looking installation. Electrical service was provided via “Squires Electric” (http://www.squireselectric.com/) who referred us for this project. Thank you!

A southwest Portland Church with large flush veneer double-entry wood doors. As you can see, the church foyer has considerable light getting in through the associated glass wall all around the doors.

However, someone has decided that they would like to have glass in their doors. Perhaps to avoid opening the door and hitting someone standing on the other side. So the question was posed; “Do we need new doors, or can glass be installed into the existing doors?”

Not only could we install glass, or what we tend to call “Lite-Kits” into the existing doors, but with the help of Corel Photo Paint software, we were able to provide a simulated photo to show what it would somewhat look like. For a better view, click on the photo to enlarge it.

And so our client employed our services for just such a project.

The glass was insulated, clear, tempered. Due to the enormous overhang, Low-E glass was not even discussed. Besides, Low-E has a tint to it which would have stood out like a sore thumb in the midst of all the surrounding original clear glass.

The frame around the glass by which the glass is glazed is “steel” and they are frequently used for installation into commercial steel (Hollow-Metal) doors. But the manner in which the lite-kit frame overlaps the face of the doors from both sides, and screw together make for an ideal after-market product for almost any type of door substrate.

The product we used was manufactured by a company called Anemostat. Go to www.anemostat.com.
They make all manner of Vision Frames, Lite Kits, Door Louvers, Glazing Products, Door Edges and Astragals. You can get them for single-glazed glass or insulated (double-pane) glass. They have a steel-frame with a wood-veneer to simulate a wood-frame.

They have Lite-Kits for Sound-Abatement applications, Hurricane Rated Lite-Kits, Security Lite-Kits with Steel covers that close & lock over the glass when a facility is to be locked and vacated and they have some custom shaped lite kits such as Oval, Round or Rectangular with round-corners…just to mention a few of their product options.

Olson Construction & Development was hired to provide certain improvements for this building currently…

…being used as a clothing recycling store, operated by the Crises Pregnancy Clinic in Saint Helens.

As you can see, the 2-sets of double-entry wood doors on this building were originally “in-swing,” and equipped with your common cylindrical type keylocks & deadbolts.

For reasons of fire-egress as it relates to the building’s new use, the in-swinging doors were now a building-code violation.

So the cylindrical locks needed to be replaced with Panic-Bars and the doors needed to be changed to an out-swing application.

If you look closely, you can see the new closers & jamb-mount weatherstripping we installed. Fortunately, the original door jambs had removable “stops,” which enabled us to quite simply reuse them for rehanging the original doors in an outswing application.

The cylindrical hardware was replaced with Von Duprin Model 99 non-vertical-rod panic devices on the interior side, and commercial pull-handles on the exterior.

As you can see in the sixth photo, we filled the original hinge mortises with wood which, after they were repainted, would erase any aesthetic liabilities related to the former door-swing configuration.

We employed the use of a removable center steel mull-post, upon which the new panic devices latched, making for a very low-maintenance door hardware package, as opposed to using the troublesome vertical-rod versions.

What they saved in not having to buy new doors & jambs, helped pay for the top-shelf, low-maintenance commercial hardware.

This Chevron Food Mart near Tigard has two aluminum doors with what are called “header-hidden door-closers.” One of the common problems with header-hidden door…

…closers has to do with the fulcrum-point that allows the door panel to exert extreme amounts of leverage that result in hyperextending the closer and thus damaging it.

Even closer-designs that attempt to offset the fulcrum-point with the use of an arm, such as this Husky brand closer, are still frequently damaged by this limitation of physics.

This damage often results in doors not closing all the way, among other symptoms. And so it is that this flawed design has resulted in much work coming our way. But rather than merely putting the same product design back to be damaged over and over…

…again, we thought it might better serve our clients if we were to come up with a solution to the problem. And so it is that the original closer that is hidden up in the header-jamb is disengaged from the door by removing the arm.

And for the door models wherein the header-hidden closer doubles in function as a top pivot-hinge, the closer is replaced with a dummy closer where the hydraulics have been removed, leaving only the pivot-hinge function. The closing aspect of the original closers are then replaced with the typical surface-mount type…

…of hydraulic door closer that not only employs much more reasonable fulcrum points, but offers the added benefit of a “back-check” feature wherein the hydraulics are used to cushion and stop the door from being hyperextended and damaged when caught by the wind or an angry patron. We call this a “closer conversion.”

Prestige Senior Living Beaverton Hills.

As with most such facilities, security is one of the premium features.

So when the weight of this 48″ X 84″ Steel Door bends the hinges and begins to sag, causing the strike-edge of the door to rub on the strike-jamb…

…causing the door not to latch, this is a fairly serious problem.

If you were to click on and enlarge the photo above, you might be able to see how the re-enforcement plate behind the hinge-jamb has begun to bend, allowing the hinge-leaf to sit at an angle that translates into the gap between the door & the hinge jamb to open up.

This in turn translates into the door moving towards the strike-jamb which creates the conflict. We gave our client two options. Number 1: A “Markar” brand Surface-Mount Re-enforcement pivot-hinge (shown above).

Number 2: “Select Hinges” brand model SL57 HD Full Surface Heavy Duty Continuous Hinge, shown above in mill finish aluminum. This product is the option our client chose.

The illustration above shows how we drill and tap into the steel hinge-jamb, and then employ the use of through-bolts that run clear through the door for an unbelievably well-anchored door.

If you enlarge this photo showing our technician David Castro cleaning up the metal shavings from drilling through the door, you should be able to make out the through-bolts that the yellow arrows are pointing to.

As you can see, we used an anodized bronze aluminum finish for this application. It goes well with the pre-existing aluminum threshold, the surface-mount door-sweep & the brown paint on the door. No more sagging.

Brandon Todd & Jared Anderson at our warehouse early in the morning scrutinizing the door operator they are going to install.

A side entrance just off the parking lot with a nice wide concrete ramp for wheelchair access.

All they need now is an automated door that allows parishioners with the need to gain as unfettered access as is possible.

The installation begins with an “aluminum-shim” to hold-out the operators housing where it needs to be in relation to the door assembly. Remember, you can click on the photo to enlarge it, which may be helpful if you can’t quite make out what we’re trying to show you.

The primary operator body is installed.

The wiring is temporarily accessed for the purposes of testing the device before…

…it is hardwired to electrical service. This allows us to test the installation of the…

…operator and the placement of the arm to the door to ensure that everything is copasetic before running the electrical service to the device.

This photo shows the activation buttons, both on the interior and the exterior button can be seen in the background on the brick wall.

All hardwired up and working like it’s supposed to.

This was the first handicap door operator we ever installed. This was some sort of professional office in a strip-mall up in Vancouver. Our 1991 Ford Van (seen through door) was still pretty much brand new and I was using my 35mm camera to document some of our projects because digital cameras were not very common or affordable yet.

We have never shied away from diversifying our skill-set. The more difficult a prospective project, the more attractive from our perspective. Why? Marketability. Has the path of least resistance ever been highly esteemed in the annals of human achievement? Not among the wise, and for good reason.

Having said that, it should be stated that although this first installation was carefully scrutinized and the instructions fully digested before proceeding, it really isn’t much more complex than installing a surface-mount hydraulic door-closer.

The biggest difference is that if you damage one of these puppies via incorrect installation, you’re on the hook for several thousand dollars, whereas most hydraulic door closers are under $200.00 as of this writing.