Life Safety and Auto Doors

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slmoo

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Article 517.32(H) Automatically operated doors used for building egress. The question is if the door has panic hardware for egress and the automatically operation is for convenience only then the operator should not be connected to the Life Safety Branch.
 

charlie b

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Location
Lockport, IL
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Retired Electrical Engineer
As I read it, 517.32 gives a list of things that are required to be on the LS branch. So the question is, how do you know that the automatic door operators are there for convenience only? Some person, likely an architect, will have created a "Life Safety Plan" that includes paths of egress. The fact that a particular door has an automatic operator does not mean that that door is included in a designated path of egress. Nor does it mean that the automatic operation is a key feature for which the Life Safety Plan is taking credit. Please note also that the presence of panic hardware is not enough of a clue. The fact that a person could easily open the door by pushing the bar does not tell you whether the Life Safety Plan requires the door operator to be available for use.

So the answer lies in another question, a simple question of fact. Is that door's automatic operation a required feature, or a convenience feature? If indeed, as you suggest, it is not a safety feature, then it need not, indeed should not, be powered by the LS branch.

Welcome to the forum. Sorry my response cannot provide a final resolution for you.
 

steve66

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
Occupation
Engineer
Article 517.32(H) Automatically operated doors used for building egress. The question is if the door has panic hardware for egress and the automatically operation is for convenience only then the operator should not be connected to the Life Safety Branch.

That does seem like a good question. I'm with Charlie, and I don't have a definite answer for you.

But I can tell you on the few projects that I have designed, I have always been required to put these doors on the LS branch. It never even occured to me that the panic hardware might make a difference.
 

iwire

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Location
Massachusetts
I have never seen any automatic door that can not be operated quickly even without power.

Even electric sliding automatic doors will push out manually in the direction of egress without much effort. :)
 

roger

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Location
Fl
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Retired Electrician
Article 517.32(H) Automatically operated doors used for building egress. The question is if the door has panic hardware for egress and the automatically operation is for convenience only then the operator should not be connected to the Life Safety Branch.

The panic hardware would be there for a designed loss of power such as during a Fire Alarm, other than that, the egress doors should operate during a generator event so they should be on the Life Safety Branch.

Many paths of egress in a hospital will have gurneys and wheel chairs going through them during a normal power outage so the automatic door operation will still be more than a convenience.

Roger
 

steve66

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
Occupation
Engineer
In the 99 handbook (NFPA 99 that is), I found an explanation that says the committiee believes that it was important to restore power to these doors within 10 seconds because: "The general public is not generally familiar with the manual operation of automatic doors under emergency conditions."

Sounds like they need to stay on the life safety circuit.
 

buldogg

Senior Member
Location
Green Bay, Wisc.
In the 99 handbook (NFPA 99 that is), I found an explanation that says the committiee believes that it was important to restore power to these doors within 10 seconds because: "The general public is not generally familiar with the manual operation of automatic doors under emergency conditions."

Sounds like they need to stay on the life safety circuit.

I agree they should be on the LSC
 

slmoo

Member
It is 517.32 (H) and it says automatically operated doors used for building egress.


What I have a problem with is that it should not be on Life Safety but on the Critical Branch because you do not need the power on the automatic door to use it for egress. 517.32 says NO function other than thoes listed in 517.32 (A) through (H). If you need the automatic part of the door equipment to egress then it should have been installed at the time the doors were installed. Also this is not an ADA issue.
 

MNWildcat

Member
Location
MN
It is 517.32 (H) and it says automatically operated doors used for building egress.


What I have a problem with is that it should not be on Life Safety but on the Critical Branch because you do not need the power on the automatic door to use it for egress. 517.32 says NO function other than thoes listed in 517.32 (A) through (H). If you need the automatic part of the door equipment to egress then it should have been installed at the time the doors were installed. Also this is not an ADA issue.

I think that is a good plan to put it on the LS circuits. Auto doors, especially in HC occupancies are usually very heavy and hard to push open manually, expecially without power as some are power assisted in the manual mode even. If the power fails, some smaller/older/chair bound people need the extra assistance to get through those doors. They are not a major load anyway and should not be anywhere close to tripping out the LS ATS.
 
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