Exterior Laundry Room Doors

[phil327]

The Condo here in Southern Florida, built in the late 1960s, has wooden louver doors for the Laundry Rooms.Time has taken its toll on a few of these doors and they need to be replaced. The Laundry Rooms are just that. a room with a washer and dryer, no windows, no other doors, Just a garbage chute in the corner. These have concrete and cinder block walls and ceilings. There is no access to any living spaces, access is off the exterior walk ways. These rooms are on floors 2 through 7. I know that that living spaces have to have impact resistant doors if they are replaced. Is this the same for Laundry Rooms. There is a significant difference in price for replacement doors.

( an easy question this time )

[Jerry Peck - Codeman]

The Laundry Rooms are just that. a room with a washer and dryer, no windows, no other doors, Just a garbage chute in the corner. These have concrete and cinder block walls and ceilings.

Depends on the original design of the structure. Back in the 1960s the wind pressures used for the design would not be the same as those used for the design today, thus if those doors were lost during a hurricane a few things could happen: a) the doors could become wind-borne debris and create damage which would otherwise not have happened; b) the loss of the door would pressurize the laundry rooms and could lead to a breach of the structure's walls, ceilings, floors (likely not the ceilings and floors are those are most likely concrete slabs, but the walls may be at risk).

The code officials, architects/engineers dislike having things become wind-borne debris, and neither would the owners and neighbors if that wind-borne debris became projectiles which caused additional damage, the complaint then would be 'Why didn't someone think of this when we were doing all that other work a couple of years ago? Stronger doors would have saved all this new damage.'' I'm sure you have heard complaints about general maintenance items 'costing too much', then, when that maintenance is deferred, and the cost goes up, I'm sure you have heard the complaints of 'why didn't someone tell us to do this when it would have cost less?'

It is a no win argument because, when they say 'it would have cost less back then', ... 'back then' is history and no longer available.

[phil327]

The rooms are 'concrete' boxes. I would guess the weakest point would be the wooden door. I was curious as to the requirement for a replacement, should one become necessary. Do these exterior doors have the same code requirements as a door for one of the apartments?

If one of these rooms were to 'blow' out, I would think that there would be other more severe damage to be concerned about.

The code officials, architects/engineers dislike having things become wind-borne debris, and neither would the owners and neighbors if that wind-borne debris became projectiles which caused additional damage, the complaint then would be 'Why didn't someone think of this when we were doing all that other work a couple of years ago? Stronger doors would have saved all this new damage.'' I'm sure you have heard complaints about general maintenance items 'costing too much', then, when that maintenance is deferred, and the cost goes up, I'm sure you have heard the complaints of 'why didn't someone tell us to do this when it would have cost less?'

I completely agree with this, The old board here did a fair amount of inexpensive fixes that later cost a lot of money to do the fix properly.

[Jerry Peck - Codeman]

The rooms are 'concrete' boxes. I would guess the weakest point would be the wooden door. I was curious as to the requirement for a replacement, should one become necessary. Do these exterior doors have the same code requirements as a door for one of the apartments?

You could hire an engineer to evaluate the laundry room 'concrete' boxes and show that missing doors would not lead to structural damage of those laundry rooms or to the main part of the structure, however, the code officials may still elect to require properly rated doors (wind rated, but not impact rated) due to being in a wind-borne debris area and not wanting any door or parts of doors to become additional wind-borne debris.

The doors being considered for installation, are they impact rated as well as rated for the higher wind loads, or are they only rated for the higher wind loads? I can agree with not having those doors impact rated once an engineer says that those 'concrete' boxes will not fail even if there was no door in the door opening (not that anyone would want the doors to be gone, the point is that the doors would remain in place, but that being breached by wind-borne debris does not create a hazard to the structure, and that the doors will remain in place even if breached by wind-borne debris - the key would also be that none of the contents of the laundry rooms becomes wind-borne debris either ... that may be the sticky wicket which ends up requiring impact rated doors.

[phil327]

They looked at replacing all the doors and windows. That project took a life on to it's own. It then became an 'owner's choice' if the owner wanted to get new doors or windows for their unit. This was not mandatory, and was offered to get a group discount and to have the permits taken care of by the board.

The common area doors ( laundry and storage ) were removed from the project. My understanding is that they will have the doors fixed, and the hinges replaced so they open, close, and latch properly.

I did not know there was a wind rating as well as impact rating, Great to learn new things.

thanks again