Emergency Doors

[Ant]

Timbo you quote
"It's the third one that I have had to sort out and strangley, the same company !!! Obviously to my mind, they don't instruct staff to check these on a regular basis."

Im aware the drift off topic I hope its not to far off though!

Don't you think that its the general standard as ever... it doesn't make money standards of staff training in the security area are lax in many areas. We installed main and emergency doors up till the late 60's early 70's and one UK bank had an emergency door in most of its larger branchs in major UK towns and it would not have happened then as there were strict rules and regular banch inspections of staff and protocols to follow. In as much as if the keys had been out of the key holders sight; the locks were altered. But you are probably aware of this as a locksmith this where most of us spent a lot of time changing locks and altering levers.
Regards to All Ant

[Timbo]

Hi Ant,
I think you are right. In the past, all these vault locks would have not only been checked but the combination codes changed on a regular basis. I guess its the same all over now, unless it goes wrong, don't waste time checking it. But in case of vaults, it can be a very costly mistake for just few minutes work.

Regards
Tim

[oldlock]

Of the very few facilities with emergency doors at major banks that I worked upon, none where operational when I first entered the building. In some cases staff were not even aware the door existed or what it was for !

A few moments talking with a manager after a near-lockout on a Chubb Treasury crane hinge door soon rectified that !

[Timbo]

Hi Paul,
The last one I did, I had to open from the inside by manipulation. Once opened the staff did'nt want to know the combination but locked off the dial in the unlocked position When I told them this door was therefore not secure, I was told "thats o.k. theres a grille gate on the inside".
As if this is as secure as a proper vault door with 2 com locks on !!!! Takes all sorts I suppose.
Tim

[Chubby]

First of all thank you for reviving this interesting thread.

Some large institutions would have a main door, controlled by combinations, and the an emergency door with keylocks. Certainly those emergency doors were very rarely opened. The ones I saw all had day gates.

The idea of using the emergency door for ventilation was, and probably still is, very common in the middle east.

One image I saw early on in the thread is that Chubb one with the TDR door and the guy in front of it. The door is 6' tall so that man can't be 3' tall. I know they used to use small people to photograph against products to make the product look larger than it actually was, but that engraving, or whatever the term is, is ridiculous.

(My mother claimed to have known a man whose job it was to make specially small furniture for show houses on estates. Whether the story was true, I don't know).

[VaultDoors]

1885 - US315613 LOCK MECHANISM FOR SAFES (Jamb Combination) by Henry Gross

[WinterG]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYXftJOoHUw

[wylk]

Today I found an eBay auction for photographs of a Mosler emergency door, the seller (modernohio) claims 1950, and a model from the RE-200 line. I'm not too interested in buying these but they are relevant to this thread:

[oldbiscuit]

I've got to ask the obvious stupid questions, If it's a true emergency door, it would open to the inside of the vault, Correct? Why would they have a time lock on the door? Would the time lock on the emergency door match up time wise with the main vault door? It looks from the pictures that someone could access the time lock on the emergency door from outside the vault and there by removing the inside cover to access the lock mechanism to open the door from the outside. If the door opens to the outside of the vault, it would be in my opinion be a secondary entrance, not so much an emergency door. Mark

[wylk]

What were the "code words" in the Chubb catalog used for?