Louis Stokes VA Medical Center, Cleveland, OH

This project consisted of 47 low energy , surface applied, door operators. About 90% of those were applied to single occupancy restroom doors.  The challenge with automating restroom doors is helping the client balance the need for accessibility and security.  Automatic door operators are only designed for access, telling the door when to open and close on demand. With restrooms you need security as well when the restroom is occupied.

To overcome the default access that comes with automating a door, we have to use devices to tell the door when it is locked, when the restroom occupied and so forth.  Without these additional devices and hardware whenever the door is manually locked from the inside and someone outside tries to use the door, the operator will keep attempting to open, eventually burning up the motor.  Utilizing items like electric strikes, latch monitoring, and relays integrated with the locks we can tell the door operator when not to open.  This is how we can automate a door with a balance of both access and security.