Author: KateL

Commercial Door Hardware

Types of Commercial Door Hardware

When a door is needed for commercial offices or a commercial building, several decisions go into one glass door. There are many concerns to take into consideration: amount of traffic through the door, safety concerns and decorative issues like finishes.

All of these considerations lead to choosing among these types hardware: commercial levers, commercial door knobs, commercial door closures, commercial door pulls, commercial push plates, commercial door kick plates, commercial door hinges, commercial door locks and deadbolts and commercial door exits.

Commercial Levers

Commercial lever handles are stronger and more durable than residential locks because they are built to a higher standard than residential hardware. Most commercial locks are made with a heavy duty cylindrical chassis, but there are lighter and heavier duty versions. Light duty versions have a standard tubular chassis, and heavy duty mortise locks. There are several kinds of commercial lever sets: keyed entry levers, privacy levers, passage levers, dummy levers, electronic levers, classroom levers, storeroom levers, dormitory levers, vestibule levers, corridor levers and asylum levers.

There are different levels of durability among commercial locks. Grade 1 locks are the most durable, the heavy duty locks used for such applications as hospitals, public buildings, schools and factories. Grade 2 commercial levers are best for medium duty applications. These Grade 2 levers are best for medical, office, hotel/motel, religious buildings, apartment buildings, retail store and for heavy duty residential use. Keyed function lever sets come with a standard or removable key core.

Commercial Door Knobs

There are several kinds of commercial door knobs such as: keyed entry knobs, privacy knobs, passage knobs, dummy knobs, classroom knobs, storeroom knobs and hotel knobs. Commercial door knobs are constructed to withstand the rigors of use in heavy traffic areas. Commercial locks are graded by ANSI (American National Standards Institute) for strength and durability.

Like with commercial door levers, commercial door knobs come in different gradients to handle varying levels of duty. Grade 2 commercial knobs handle light or medium commercial applications, including professional buildings, hotel/motel, religious buildings, apartment complexes or high traffic residential areas. Grade 1 commercial door knobs handle heavy duty applications. These door knobs are required in places where hard or continuous use is expected, places such as hospitals, schools, public buildings, industrial buildings and factories. Some of the commercial door knobs are available with a standard key cylinder or with removable key core.

Interconnected commercial door knobs are used in apartment buildings or the like where single action egress hardware is required. Door knobs do not meet ADA requirements. If your projects requires ADA compliant hardware, see our commercial lever handles.

Commercial Deadbolts

Usually used with commercial door knobs, commercial deadbolts come in many varieties. The kinds of deadbolts include single cylinder deadbolts, double cylinder deadbolts, one-sided deadbolts, indicator deadbolts, mechanical deadbolts, classroom deadbolts, Bluetooth-enabled deadbolts and deadbolts with key pads.

Commercial Door Closures

Door closures are a great solution to higher traffic doors in commercial applications where spring hinges just won’t do. There are many kinds of door closures such as surface mount door closer, hold open door closures, concealed door closures, delayed door closures and electronic door closures .

Door closures also come with several options such as “hold open,” which is used to keep the door open during high traffic periods, and a “soft close” the door down to avoid a loud slam.

Door Pulls and Door Push Plates

Instead of commercial levers and commercial door knobs, there are commercial door pulls and door push plates.

Commercial Door Kick Plates

Commercial door kick plates come in various sizes and are mounted using screws or magnets. Kick plates are typically ordered 2″ skinnier than the width of the door to avoid interrupting the trim and weather stripping.

Commercial Door Hinges

Commercial grade door hinges are set apart by the use of thicker gauge metal and a sturdier, more secure design. It’s always best, when selecting commercial grade door hinges, to purchase the same brand as the rest of the door hardware chosen to maintain the most consistency in hardware finishes.

Interconnected Door Locks

When the knob or lever is turned to open the door, an internal mechanism in an interconnected door lock deactivates the deadbolt lock. Not only is this type of lock convenient, but it is also required by some retirement homes or some municipalities for certain applications like group.

Commercial Door Panic Devices

Commercial door exit devices, perhaps more commonly referred to as “panic devices,” are the T-shaped bars that lay across a commercial door at approximately elbow height. They have “touch” bars that release the locking mechanism allowing for exit. These are most commonly used on rear doors that are part of a fire exit or emergency exit strategy. There are a few kinds of panic devices such as rim exit devices, rod exit devices and mortise lock exit devices.

All of these types of commercial door hardware come in several types of finishes. The available options include polished brass, antique brass, oil rubbed bronze, satin nickel, antique pewter, satin or polished chrome, aged bronze, satin bronze, white and matte black.

With so many pieces of door hardware to choose from, it can get pretty overwhelming. We’ll help you find the perfect commercial door closures, commercial door locks, commercial door hinges, commercial door knobs, commercial door stops and commercial door push, pull and kick plates. Give us a call (215-425-8600) and let us know what you’re up to. We’re happy to serve you!

 

The Revolving Door

The first revolving door was invented in 1888 with the goal of preventing wind, snow, rain, dust, or noise from entering buildings. The original patent application was filed by Theophilus Van Kannel of Philadelphia. (He was granted U.S. patent 387,571 for a three-wing “Storm-door structure” on August 7, 1888.)

While Kannel’s design for revolvers featured three wings or chambers that would allow people to pass through, the most often used design is a four-wing revolver. Additionally, revolving doors can feature just two wings or chambers.

Revolving doors provide opportunity for increased traffic while minimizing the ability of people to run into each other. In one hour, a standard four-wing revolving door allows for the movement of up to 4,800 people into and out of a building. Revolving doors are usually seen in large buildings, and it’s these same buildings that account for18.6 percent of America’s total energy costs.

Revolving doors have, over the past two decades, met the security requirements of both Fortune 500 companies and airports.

Revolving doors, or revolvers, have a lot of benefits. Here, we’ll explore some of those benefits, including energy savings, an enhanced user experience, and lobbies that are quieter, cleaner and more beautiful.

Energy Savings

Because revolving doors are both always open and always closed, they provide the least possible amount of air infiltration.Swinging doors exchange eight times more air than revolving doors.

In “Modifying Habits Towards Sustainability: A Study of Revolving Door Usage on the MIT Campus,” MIT researchers considered the effects of revolving doors at several of locations on campus.

Revolving doors are only effective when they are used, and the researchers at MIT found a usage rate of approximately 68 percent. The average daily cost of energy due to air leakage at MIT was $13.10 during the winter, but a 75 percent usage rate of revolving doors drops the cost to $7.66. If the doors saw 100 percent usage, the daily cost of energy would drop to $2.83.

Based on these findings, two revolving doors at one building could save approximately $7,500 per year in natural gas used to heat and cool. That’s a savings of nearly 15 tons of CO2 emissions.

While revolvers have been traditionally considered a cold-climate solution, they’ve become an increasingly popular entryway product in warmer climates, as it’s just as important to keep conditioned air in a building as it is to keep heated air in a building.

More Beautiful, Quiet, Cleaner Lobbies

Revolving doors have other great benefits, including less space usage and better safety. Revolving doors do not require the same kind of space that traditional manual, or “swing,” doors require, and they’re also safer than traditional doors, which can slam closed on users. The chamber style of revolving doors also provide for a cleaner, more quiet lobby since they don’t open directly to wind and street noise.

Increased Safety

Revolvers can be much safer than traditional manual swing doors. Revolving doors that require users to push through max out at approximately 12 revolutions per minute, with canopy- or floor-mounted controls to keep them from spinning out of control. Automatic revolving doors are built with a series of active and passive sensors that keep them safe.

Enhanced User Experience

The ease with which patrons can enter your building when you use revolving doors will make them happy customers. The investment in powered doors demonstrates that your company cares about the patron’s convenience, said Donald Moerbe, president of the American Association of Automatic Door Manufacturers, to Buildings.com. These entrances can be especially helpful in positioning your company as a competitor for the business of senior citizens.

The Challenge of Increasing Usage

With as many benefits as revolving doors offer, it’s a no-brainer to install them or retrofit your building with revolvers, but it’s not always such a no-brainer for users to pass through them instead of using a manual or swinging door.

Andrew Shea from Good magazine wrote “How To Hack Big Energy Savings With a Simple Sign and a Revolving Door,” based on his own non-scientific experiments and observations. When there are revolving doors and swinging or manual doors in close proximity, people will follow the flow of traffic unless redirected by someone or something like a sign. Shea observed roughly 28 percent of people using revolvers when most traffic flowed through the swing doors into major buildings in Manhattan. Surely, manual doors are crucial for allowing building access to the disabled and to those bearing large deliveries, but “our country could decrease the $68 billion we spend on heating and cooling every year if the rest of us used revolving doors,” Shea wrote.

Using three different signs, Shea tested the impact of signs on the flow of traffic through revolving doors on Columbia University’s campus. He found that the bigger the sign, and the more closely aligned it is with the building or organization’s branding, the more effective it was. So a two-foot arrow in Columbia’s royal blue that points to the revolving doors and says “Please use revolving doors,” is more effective than a small orange sign with the same script.

Interestingly, the energy savings from using revolvers aren’t linear. You’ll see greater savings when you increase revolving door usage from 50 to 75 percent than you’ll see increasing usage from 25 to 50 percent. And so anything you can do to increase usage of your revolving doors, especially later efforts, will really pay off.

Energy Efficient Windows & Doors

Whether your company is working on plans for a new building or looking to renovate or add onto an existing property, you can find energy-efficient windows, doors and skylights to fit your needs. First, though, you have to understand a few basic principles including how these glass products gain and lose heat, energy performance ratings, and energy performance characteristics such as U-factor, solar heat gain coefficient and air leakage.

Windows, doors and skylights gain and lose heat in three ways:

(1) Direct conduction through the glass, glazing, frame and/or door.

(2) Radiation of heat, typically generated by the sun, into a house, and the loss of heat out of the house through room-temperature objects such as people, furniture and interior walls.

(3) Leaking of air through and around doors, windows and skylights.

That doesn’t mean you can’t reduce the amount of heat loss or increase the amount of heat gain. By choosing and using energy-efficient windows, doors and skylights, you can protect the environment, reduce the costs of heating and cooling your company headquarters, and enjoy a naturally lit work environment.

ENERGY PERFORMANCE RATINGS & LABELS

The energy performance ratings of windows, doors and skylights indicate the product’s potential for heat gain and heat loss. Energy performance ratings also tell you how much potential the window, door or skylight has for allowing sunlight into your home.

How do you know what a window or door’s energy performance rating is? All ENERGY STAR qualified windows, doors and skylights carry labels or stickers from the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC). The NFRC runs a voluntary program that tests, certifies and labels windows, doors and skylights based on their energy performance ratings. These NFRC labels enable consumers to reliably determine the product’s energy properties and compare with other windows, doors and skylights.

ENERGY STAR, a government-backed program, provides information on energy efficiency and enables businesses and individuals to protect the environment. ENERGY STAR qualifications are based solely on U-factor and solar heat gain coefficient (more on these later).

DESIGN AND USING WINDOWS EFFICIENTLY

You must choose, position and size your windows in a specific way to maximize solar heat gain. In very hot climates, you want big windows facing the south to collect solar heat in the winter, as this is when the sun hangs lowest in the sky. By summer, the sun has risen high overhead. That’s when you’ll want overhangs and other shading devices on those south-facing windows so that you can prevent excessive heat gain, thereby reducing the costs of cooling the house.

On Energy.gov, it’s recommended that you minimize the use of Windows on walls that face north, east and west while still allowing for adequate daylight. This is because it is difficult tocontrol heat and light through east- and west-facing windows when the sun is low in the sky. East- and west-facing windows, doors and skylights should be shaded and/or have a low solar heat gain coefficient. North-facing windows are used solely for light purposes as they collect little solar heat.

In addition to using shading to help control solar heat gain, you can purchase windows with low-emissivity (low-e) glazing.

HEAT LOSS AND HEAT GAIN

Using the folloing energy performance characteristics, you can measure and rate the heat loss and heat gain properties of windows, doors and skylights.

– U-factor is usually expressed in units of Btu/hr-ft2-oF. This is the rate at which a window, door, or skylight conducts non-solar heat. A U-factor may refer solely to the glass or glazing, but NFRC U-factor ratings refer to the entire window or door’s performance. This includes frame and spacer material. Windows, doors and skylights with lower U-factors are more energy-efficient.

– The fraction of solar radiation admitted through a window, door or skylight is called solar heat gain coefficient. This solar radiation is either transmitted directly and/or absorbed. It issubsequently released inside the home as heat. The amount of solar heat a window, door or skylight transmits and the greaterits shading ability, the lower the solar heat gain coefficient will be. “A product with a high SHGC rating is more effective at collecting solar heat during the winter,” according to energy.gov.The lower the product’s solar heat gain coefficiency rating, the better it will be at reducing the amount of cooling needed in the summer. Your building’s climate, orientation and external shading determine the optimal solar heat gain coefficient for a particular window, door or skylight.

– Air leakage, expressed in units of cubic feet per minute per square foot of frame area (cfm/ft2), is the rate of air movement around a window, door or skylight in the presence of a specific pressure difference. The tighter the product frame, the lower the air leakage will be.

SUN TRANSMITTANCE

There are two energy performance characteristics that can be used to measure and rate a window, door or skylight’s ability to allow sunlight into a building: visible transmittance and light-to-solar gain.

– Visible transmittance: A fraction of sunlight’s visible spectrum (380 to 720 nanometers) that enters a building through the glazing of a window, door or skylight. The higher the visible transmittance, expressed as a number between 0 and 1, the more visible light flows through a window, door or skylight. The visible transmittance you need for a window, door or skylight is determined by your building’s daylighting requirements. Another consideration is how much reduction of interior glare the space needs.

– Light-to-solar gain is the ratio between the solar heat gain coefficient and visible transmittance, which is a gauge of how efficient different glass or glazing types are at allowing daylight in while blocking heat gains. The higher the light-to-solar gain rating, the more light is allowed in while avoiding excessive amounts of heat. Light-to-solar gain ratings aren’t always provided on products.

Novo Nordisk, Princeton NJ

Paul Rabinowitz Glass completed the new corporate headquarters of Novo Nordisk, a pharmaceutical company located in Princeton, NJ. This fast-paced project was a complete fit-out that included the installation of a new ½” tempered glass entranceway with low profile rails, (200) Dorma Agile 150 interior office sliding glass doors and (10) conference room doors extending over five floors.