Originally Posted By: Arney
Originally Posted By: Tom_L
Yup, that's pretty much the case. It is a fairly high security place.

I'm still quite concerned about these electromagnetic door locks of yours. Have you asked anyone in charge about this situation? The locks may actually disengage when the fire alarm goes off. Another thing I would personally want to know is whether the doors unlock when the power goes out. Some don't, that is, they "fail secure".

This situation bothers me because I remember feeling really sorry for some folks when I read a news article a few years back about some office fire. For security reasons, the doors in the stairwell can't be opened from inside the stairwell once they close behind you. A number of office workers were going down the stairs to escape but ran into thick smoke so they had to retreat back upstairs. Unfortunately, they couldn't gain access to any of the floors and they died in the stairwell from the smoke. I understand the security concerns for setting things up that way, but that's tragic.


I echo Arney's comments. In normal buildings, the doors should always permit exit through even with mag-locks. It's part of every building code. When power is disconnected they should still allow panic bar access to the outside even if they default to a locked position. A default to locked position would prevent entry into the building using those doors which is probably more of a consideration for the fire department access to the structure. Now there are exceptions to this - jails for example where security to doors is in both directions. However, in these cases, the requirements are usually increased for fire compartments, higher level fire separations and mandatory sprinklers to provide additional time and a refuge for occupants from a serious condition like a fire and to permit an orderly but more secure method of evacuating personnel. Maglocks can also be equipped with battery packs to allow for proper operation in case of a fire.

But in Arney's example - something must have been definitely wrongly designed. The locks in the stairwell should have been maglocks (not one way manual locks) and they should have defaulted to open in case of a fire. Not only are stairwells used as emergency exits but are designed to be a safe space for fire fighting crews to enter and circulate in the building. Locked stairwells are illegal. If that actually happened as Arney suggested the building operators could easily have been guilty of negligent homicide and major flak would have been raised with it.

My own office building is grandfathered into the code and we have locked stairwells after business hours but every third floor is a cross-over floor in which the stairwell door is NOT locked and occupants can proceed from one stairwell through the floor space to another stairwell just in the case of a fire after hours. When I get it redesigned in a couple of years this will be engineered properly to comply with current regulations.

I am involved in building management and building code compliance and as luck and timing would have it, I am attending a 3-day conference this week and tomorrow's topic is emergency exiting and control during a fire!