Locked out if electric door locks with power outage

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James L

James L

Senior Member
Location
Kansas Cty, Mo, USA
Occupation
Electrician
This is not for me, but I'm curious

We had a big storm roll through yesterday, and power is out in patches all a ross the KC Metro area.

I went to a convenience store this morning and a customer was almost begging the clerk if he could Cash App $10.00 and get cash for breakfast. He seemed pretty desperate, so I asked him what up.

He said he lives in an apartment, and all the locks are electric. Thus, he's been locked out since yesterday and his wallet is at home.

So after much ado, my question.

What kind of apartment door locks are electric?

Would it be electromagnetic with key pad, or pass key, or something different?
 
Probably an electric strike with a pass card to activate, but usually they have battery backup for the system unless the batteries were not maintained. If it was a mag lock, it would have released automatically if power was lost, so most likely a door strike that releases when energized.
 
James L said:
This is not for me, but I'm curious

We had a big storm roll through yesterday, and power is out in patches all a ross the KC Metro area.

I went to a convenience store this morning and a customer was almost begging the clerk if he could Cash App $10.00 and get cash for breakfast. He seemed pretty desperate, so I asked him what up.

He said he lives in an apartment, and all the locks are electric. Thus, he's been locked out since yesterday and his wallet is at home.

So after much ado, my question.

What kind of apartment door locks are electric?

Would it be electromagnetic with key pad, or pass key, or something different?
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Many years ago I did work for Electronic Data Systems, they used a card key system to get in and out of the computer room. Each individual had to swipe their card going in, and going out. If you followed somebody in without swiping your card, you were locked in if they left before you, because your card would be out of sync!
 
hillbilly1 said:
Many years ago I did work for Electronic Data Systems, they used a card key system to get in and out of the computer room. Each individual had to swipe their card going in, and going out. If you followed somebody in without swiping your card, you were locked in if they left before you, because your card would be out of sync!
Click to expand...
So did you get hired to replace that system after a big boss of theirs got locked in?
 
letgomywago said:
So did you get hired to replace that system after a big boss of theirs got locked in?
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It was still operational after I stopped working out there. You just had to call security to let you out. They had a few offices in there. While I worked in there, they would disable the Halon system, and for good reason, one day I had the floor tile out in one office, it blew cold air on the thermal, and turned on the heat! Years of dust on the coils let out a cloud of smoke, and started the countdown to the Halon dispersing!
 
hillbilly1 said:
It was still operational after I stopped working out there. You just had to call security to let you out. They had a few offices in there. While I worked in there, they would disable the Halon system, and for good reason, one day I had the floor tile out in one office, it blew cold air on the thermal, and turned on the heat! Years of dust on the coils let out a cloud of smoke, and started the countdown to the Halon dispersing!
Click to expand...
A Halon release will get your attention!
 
hillbilly1 said:
Yeah, we would pull the solenoid of the canister, the alarm would still work, it just couldn’t release the agent.
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We installed a lot of Fike systems that used a class C explosive (blasting cap) for release but we only tested them by wiring a flashbulb in the release ckt. It was always armed on site by another Fike rep.
 
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