Interesting Mail Forwards

Have you ever wondered, why do the entry doors to most homes open
inward, while in most public buildings, the entry doors open outward?

The basic doorway in your home has a very simple structure: A large
board is attached to a frame using a few "pin" hinges. This design has
a number of advantages -- it is easy to build, easy to install and
easy to repair. Of course, it is also very easy to disassemble --
removing the hinge pins completely detaches the door from the frame.

While this might help you out a good deal as a homeowner -- you can
remove the door in order to squeeze in an over-sized couch, for
example -- it's not something you want to make accessible to
intruders. For this reason, the hinge mechanism needs to be positioned
inside the house. With a standard hinge design, this means the door
will open inward.

Public buildings have the same security concerns, of course, but they
also have to consider other safety factors. Unlike a private home, a
public building is likely to have large numbers of people in it. In
case of fire or other emergency, these people need to be evacuated as
quickly and easily as possible.

When a mob of people rushes an exit, it's very hard for somebody to
open the door inward -- everyone pushes up against the door, and there
is no room for it to open. For this reason, an effective emergency
exit needs to open outward, moving with the force of the mob. This is
also why a lot of emergency exits are built with wide "panic bars"
instead of ordinary door knobs. The basic idea is to build the exit so
even the most out-of-control mob will be able to escape.
To maintain perimeter security, public exits are typically built with
concealed or protected hinges, which are much harder to detach than
simple pin-hinges. These doors are more expensive to install and
repair, making them impractical for residential use. And as long as
you don't have an unruly mob living with you, these outward-opening
doors don't offer any real advantage in your home.

Quite interesting.......

posted by Amba K  # 8:36 AM