Is it permissible to have an exit sign at a door the swings inward?

[Cadydriver]

I have a situation at a school where an inner corridor connects to a number of administrative offices. That corridor connects at two locations to a main exit corridor that leads to several legal exits. The doors from the administrative corridor into the main exit corridor swing inward, opposite the flow of exit. Is it permissible by code to put exit signs at these two doors since they are not legal exits and the doors swing inward? What code dictates this requirement? I checked NFPA 101 but it is very ambiguous on the matter.

 

[the blur]

Most exit doors should swing outwards, except residental front doors.

 

[forman400b]

except residental front doors.

Curious, why is that?

 

[jusme123]

I think it has to do with the amount of people exiting, stampede style, in an emergency.

 

[jim dungar]

Most exit doors should swing outwards, except residental front doors.

Ever look at the front door of offices sharing a common hallway?

 

[iwire]

Most exit doors should swing outwards, except residental front doors.

Curious, why is that?

As far as outward swinging exit doors, the Coconut Grove fire.

In the year that followed the fire, Massachusetts and other states enacted laws for public establishments banning flammable decorations and inward-swinging exit doors, and requiring exit signs to be visible at all times (meaning that the exit signs had to have independent sources of electricity, and be easily readable in even the thickest smoke). The new laws also required that revolving doors used for egress must either be flanked by at least one normal, outward-swinging door, or retrofitted to permit the individual door leaves to fold flat to permit free-flowing traffic in a panic situation, and further required that no emergency exits be chained or bolted shut in such a way as to bar escape through the doors during a panic or emergency situation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoanut_Grove_fire


Now for homes they did not feel the need to require outward swing doors which is if they had included single family homes that would be an issue with people who like having screen doors.

 

[Cadydriver]

As far as outward swinging exit doors, the Coconut Grove fire.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoanut_Grove_fire


Now for homes they did not feel the need to require outward swing doors which is if they had included single family homes that would be an issue with people who like having screen doors.

What if the sub-corridor door going into the main exit corridor does swing inward, is it allowable to install an exit sign above that door anyway to indicate that it enters into a main exit corridor?

 

[jim dungar]

According to OSHA, not all exit doors must 'swing out'.
This is definitely a building or Fire Code issue.

http://www.osha.gov/OshDoc/data_General_Facts/emergency-exit-routes-factsheet.pdf

"Side-hinged exit doors must be used to connect rooms to exit routes. These doors must swing out in the direction of exit travel if
the room is to be occupied by more than 50 people or if the room is a high-hazard area."

 

[Dennis Alwon]

I would have assumed all commercial exits had to swing out as they are fire exits.

I rarely have seen a residential exterior door swing out. It is cheaper to have them swing in since you don't have to worry about the hinges on the exterior.

 

[renosteinke]

"Coconut Grove," and nearly every similar example, are very poor examples to cite because there were so many 'wrong' things. We simply cannot say 'the disaster would have been prevente if ..."

Let's face facts: when you decorate the place with materials that burn like rocket fuel, pack in as many folks as you can with a shoehorn, get them all liquored up, turn off the lights, crank the music to jet-engine levels, block / padlock / bar the doors .... then start setting off pyrotechnics .... just what do you expect to have happen? Such events are so often found to have broken so many existing rules it's a miracle that so FEW die.

Getting back on track .... the door is an exit no matter the way it swings. Nor is it always possible to have the door swinging in the direction of the exit. To cite one example: a hallway door where there are exits at both ends of the hall.

As for household exits .... I don't know about you guys, but my house has screen doors in addition to the main door. They can't both swing 'out.'

 

[roger]

I would have assumed all commercial exits had to swing out as they are fire exits.

I used to think that until we did a Vo Tech area at a University awhile ago. One particular area had a room where less than xx people would be in at one time and it had exit doors that swung in. I questioned it due to the exit signs we were installing and the Architect quoted a code article to support the design.

Roger

 

[USMC1302]

I had an experience very similar, and would agree that this will most likely be a firecode issue. I would advise getting the local and state fire marshal involved early, before wasting any more money. NFPA 101 is not the end all, especially where I am(Indiana). I had to argue several times to get the state to give an interpretation on door swings and hardware that I knew would be rejected after it was installed. Kept getting the "It's the architect/engineer's responsibility to ensure it is designed to code"
spiel. Roger( I believe) correctly stated that it may also depend on the allowable occupancy/size of the space. The type of occupancy also applies. In my case, like yours, (a school) has a different set of requirements often.

 

[WorkSafe]

"Coconut Grove," and nearly every similar example, are very poor examples to cite because there were so many 'wrong' things. We simply cannot say 'the disaster would have been prevente if ..."

Let's face facts: when you decorate the place with materials that burn like rocket fuel, pack in as many folks as you can with a shoehorn, get them all liquored up, turn off the lights, crank the music to jet-engine levels, block / padlock / bar the doors .... then start setting off pyrotechnics .... just what do you expect to have happen? Such events are so often found to have broken so many existing rules it's a miracle that so FEW die.

You are mixing Coconut Grove and the Rhode Island night club (The Station) fire. Coconut Grove started from lighting a match, Rhode Island was the pyrotechnics. Symantics none the less/

 

[renosteinke]

Worksafe, you're not too far off ... I actually had several such incidents in mind, some going back nearly a century. One actually involved deliberate criminal action to confine people within. My point was simply that there's only so much you can do ... rather like a kid playing in traffic - break enough rules, and something bad will happen.

I won't deny that there's a role for proper design; the attack on the World Trade Center showed just how well things can work. That death toll was but a tenth of what early estimates had feared.