Having Doors Open into the Hallway – DSP 333

Float centers, more so than some other brick and mortar businesses, tend to be desperate for maximizing the efficiency of their space. And float rooms would have so much extra space if they didn’t have to deal with a door swinging in and out all the time. Why don’t float centers do it this way instead?

Well… Graham and Ashkahn explain exactly why centers don’t do this already, along with the vast majority of other buildings being made currently. It’s likely a code violation and even if it weren’t, it’d probably be unnecessarily hazardous to travel through your center that way.

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Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)

Graham: Alright.

Ashkahn: Welcome. Welcome everyone.

Graham: I think that might have actually been our longest intro that we’ve ever done. Referential intros’ll get like that.

Ashkahn: My name’s Ashkahn.

Graham: I am Graham.

Ashkahn: And, we had a big Q coming.

Graham: Big Q coming your way. And that is, “I haven’t started construction yet.”

Ashkahn: Nice.

Graham: “But, I’m sitting here, looking at my blueprints and wondering; would it make more sense to have the float room doors open into the hall instead of the rooms, to increase usable space in the small float rooms?” That old doors opening into the hall dilemma.

Ashkahn: The old doors going outside instead of inside so you can get more accessible square footage space in the float room question.

Graham: Classic.

Man, if I had a hundred dollar bill for every time someone asked me that, I’d be able to go out some eat some dinner tonight. That would be really nice.

Ashkahn: Yeah. So, yes. It is annoying that your doors take up a bunch of swinging room in these tiny float spaces that you have.

Graham: But only when the door is actually opening or closing, right? Once you set it, then you get the square footage back.

Ashkahn: Well, kind of.

Graham: You can’t hang a shelf on the wall there, or-

Ashkahn: Your float tank can’t be in the way.

Graham: Your float tank can’t be in the way.

Ashkahn: This is a problem. Yeah, but, even in on of our rooms, the door can’t open all the way ’cause there’s a float tank there.

Graham: It’d be really nice if we could open it a little further. I see where they’re coming from.

Ashkahn: I do too.

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: That’d be cool.

Ashkahn: In fact, I think I’ve thought this when we were doing our thing. They were like, “Let’s just have these doors swing the frigging other way. What are we doing having them swing in?”

Graham: So, in a world where it’s complete anarchy, and there are no regulations you need to follow, you can totally do this, and it might still cause issues. Like, what if someone’s walking down the hallway and someone opens the door with gusto, and they get slammed in the face with the door?

Ashkahn: I mean, I’m pretty sure that’s the biggest problem here, right? I mean, there’s other specifics

Graham: That is the biggest problem. Yeah.

Ashkahn: People just walk down hallways.

Graham: And, your staff, oftentimes, is walking pretty fast down hallways, and trying to get these rooms clean as fast as they can.

Ashkahn: I’m just picturing our hallway, which has six doors, opening up into it in a matter of 30 feet.

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: That sounds really dangerous. And intense. It would be like some sort of video game. Like, some sort of old 90s video game, where you die all the time, and you need to keep starting back at the beginning.

Graham: Paper Boy Extreme.

Yeah. So, that’s the biggest problem, right? If someone is opening the door inward, it’s really rare that someone’s going to be walking into someone’s float room while they’re in there, and specifically right when they’re about to be coming out anyway, on the other side of the door.

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: So, making the person, where the door is going to be swinging, in charge of the motion of the door, is just eliminates the chance of accidents happening.

Ashkahn: And, I mean, there’s probably some ADA laws, and stuff like that. I mean, if you look around you in your life, everywhere you go-

Graham: In your commercial bedroom.

Ashkahn: But anywhere, right? Think about hotels. Think about just the bedrooms in your house. Every door into a room swings into the room instead of out into the hallway.

Graham: In general. There are definitely some exceptions for that. I’ve seen restrooms where the door swings outward, and things like that. Especially in high traffic areas. There are definitely some times when that’s not the case. But, usually it’s when the person on the inside is more likely to get hit by a door swinging, right? Or, just, intuitively makes more sense that that would happen.

Ashkahn: I think it makes more sense, too, more than interior or dead end sort of space that you’re in, the more likely you’re gonna be answering the door for someone.

Imagine having a door where someone knocks on it, and to let them in, you had to open it towards them. Right?

Graham: Yeah, that’s awkward. It’s weird.

So, the other side of that is, it is very likely to not actually pass code in your area.

Ashkahn: Yeah, I’d be pretty surprised if this was legal, unless you had-

Graham: And wide enough hallways might be one case. We’re not code experts. But, maybe if people have such a big avenue to walk down the center of a really wide hallway, that doors opening on either side just aren’t likely to hit them in their main path, then it’s okay.

But, in a float center, you’re usually trying to make the most of your space. Doors will be directly opposite each other. So, again, check your local code, if you really, despite our deterrences, are still really eager beaver to get these doors opening in the hallway direction, but even if you’re convinced for yourself, you might still not be able to do it.

Ashkahn: Yeah. So, I’m sorry.

Graham: Shoot the message, not the messenger. That’s what they say.

Ashkahn: Yeah. And it probably does just make more sense to have your doors open. It just feels right.

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: You think about all those Scooby Doo montages or the Benny Hill Show. Think how weird those would look with doors opening out.

Graham: And they’re have to pause right before, which means the ghost chasing them would have to pause, too, just out of politeness.

Ashkahn: Yeah, see, so, yeah.

Graham: But you did the right thing, in that you thought you had a brilliant idea, and then you sent it to us to destroy, which I encourage everyone else out there to do too.

Cruise on down to floattanksolutions.com. If you’re feeling like it, type in /podcast as well. That’ll take you to the page where you can actually submit questions. And, we’ll be here same time tomorrow, if you listen to us at the same time every day.

Ashkahn: Every day. Yeah. We just sleep in this little room that we’re in right now.

Graham: We just sleep in your headphones.

Ashkahn: One of us in each ear.

Graham: We’ll be here when you’re ready for us.

Ashkahn: Snuggled up in there.

Bye everyone.

Graham: Right.

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