Horizontal sliding-door Systems: Opening New Opportunities for Design Flexibility
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As long as the horizontal sliding-door systems meet those performance standards, they are allowed.
The confusion arises because many design professionals refer to the provisions of the three regional building codes developed over the 1990's that allowed horizontal sliding door systems with restrictions, Welch said.
The first modifications appeared in the 1986 NFPA life safety code and appeared in print in the 1988 edition of the NFPA life safety code. "That was a kind of beachhead," Welch said. Then the revisions appeared in 1990 in the Building Officials and Code Administration's National Building Code, and in 1991 in the International Conference of Building Officials' Uniform Building Code and in the Southern Building Code Congress International's Standard Building Code. In all of those revisions, there were restrictions-limiting the use of the systems to elevator lobbies, in healthcare facilities, and in building with an occupancy load of 50 or less.
By 1996, the Building Officials and Code Administration lifted those restrictions. But it was only in 2000, when the three regional codes were combined in the International Building Code, that the restrictions were lifted uniformly.
The revisions are increasing complexity but also opening up options for architects who wrestle with emergency egress and fire protection issues in even the largest occupancy structures. Spencer M. Johnson, AIA, principal at Cole + Russell Architects in Cincinnati, recalled that when a fire-rated separation door was needed for two large openings in the expansion and renovation of the Cincinnati Convention Center recently, the initial move was to replace the existing overhead coiling doors with new overhead doors. The building code required that one of the doors be capable of being opened by convention attendees during an emergency, and the overhead doors in place could not be re-opened even by the staff of the facility; the vendor had to be called in to raise them back in place. The new overhead doors were capable of being opened by occupants, but changes to the structural steel design and the architecture were required to conceal the overhead coiling drum and support the coiling door weight.
"The final result was not as eloquent" as a horizontal sliding-door system, Johnson said. A horizontal sliding-doorsystem was more expensive than the overhead coiling system, but after it was value-engineered out and then savings were realized elsewhere on the project, Johnson said it was the first item he sought to have reinstated.
Anthony Flint is the Boston-based author of the forthcoming book "This Land: The Battle Over Sprawl and the Future of America."
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